WIX Minor Upgrade File Update Without Changing Version Number?

Question

I have a DLL that is installed with a WIX MSI. I want to create a patch that will allow an end user to run and automatically update that DLL.

I've been able to successfully get the patch created and the DLL does update ONLY if I update the DLLs version number. This is a pain because I'm not really interested in versioning the DLL necessarily every time I patch. I want to do this without changing the version number of the DLL.

You should be interested in versioining the DLL. It's an important artifact in tracible configuration management. — Christopher Painter
Version numbers can be wrong and can break things. Checksums can't and don't. Why use versions when you can checksum? — AlexPi

Christopher Painter Christopher Painter · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-26T18:09:24

I'm hesistant to share this with you because it's a hack that's usually reserved for when some vendor gives you a DLL and they have failed to follow the component rules and versioned the file. It's really bad form to do this yourself in house.

You want to google "WiX Version Lying". Basically use update the File@DefaultVersion attribute in the WXS to specify a higher version number. (Frequently 65535.0.0.0 ) This tricks MSI into always overwriting the file.

But it really would be better to just automate the versioning of your DLL's as part of the build process so MSI has real data to work with and you can easily audit the deployed environment.

WIX Minor Upgrade File Update Without Changing Version Number?

1 Answers