Windows per-machine install requires reference to original installer when second user runs application

Question

I'm working on an MSI installer written in Wix. The installer works in both per-user, and per-machine contexts.

In a per-machine installation, everything goes smoothly; the product is installed and configured for the initial user. Upon switching to a test user, the application appears in the start menu correctly. Running it for the first time, a msiexec process starts with the message that the app is being configured. However, if the original .msi has been deleted, this process fails.

The failing setup action gives the following message in its log:

Error 1706. An installation package for the product myProduct cannot be found. Try the installation again using a valid copy of the installation package 'myInstaller.msi'.

=== Logging stopped: 3/16/2017 11:15:52 ===

I understand from reading a blog post by Rob Mensching (Lead of Wix) that it probably isn't possible to just edit the source list to point towards the windows cached .msi, a point backed up by another article I've found. Is that correct?

Is there a way to stop this entire action of calling the msi on first run by users from happening? Caching the msi or keeping the original is not ideal, I'd like to use the .msi in a custom bootstrapper that involves deleting the msi once installation is complete.

Answer 1

Microsoft recommends you keep the original MSI available, Rule 31:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/windows_installer_team/2006/05/24/tao-of-the-windows-installer-part-3/

and I won't repeat what it says about repair/resiliency, but you cannot guarantee the source MSI won't be needed sometime.

You're probably getting this "repair" because there is some resource (a file most likely) that is being installed to a user-profile location. When another user logs on and uses the application that file is missing, so potentially the application is broken. For example a file installed to User's Application Data needs to be available for all users of the system, not just the user that installed it.

So keeping the MSI might not be ideal but is strongly recommended, and in your case of product use by multiple users it's even more likely to required. There should be an Application Event log entry under MsiInstaller that says something about the missing resource.