Upgrading MSM with MSI

[Kedar R. Kelkar]

Hi all,

I delivered a shared component as a merge module, but having seen the
trouble that consumers have with integration/configuration, I am thinking I
would rather have an MSI in the next release of my component.

My idea is to uninstall the MSM programmatically, and install MSI.

Since the component is shared, the install paths etc. will remain same.

I have a few questions though.

0) Has anyone done it before - whether or not it's supposed to be done.
1) Is there an API to do it or would it be brute force file deletion and
registry cleanup?

Thanks for your insight,
~Kedar

 

[Martin R.]

As far I know you can't uninstall merge modules. You can just uninstall
features e.g. via command line. Having setups instead of merge modules is
surly easier to handle than merge modules, which can make troubles when
upgrading.

 

[Luke Surace]

A merge module is merged into an msi, and no traces of the merge module are
visible inside this msi once it has been created.
Merge Modules are only used to help shared components and make life easy for
grouping data sets together. These are never seen by the end user.

Personally, I would still keep the merge module, but create an msi project
yourself that uses your merge module and then you can send this to your
clients. This also gives you the flexibility of sending consumers you merge
module if they really want it.

cheers,

Luke

 

[willyd]

Hi,

I have merged both MSXML 4.0 SP2 MSM files into my MSI package successfully.
I am able to install the package successfully, with the MSXML4*.* files
installed in
%SystemRoot%/System32 and/or %SystemRoot%/WinSXS and the registry updated
with
MSXML4 entries. When I run the installed application, it works on some
machines but
CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(SAXXMLReader40), ...) fails with REGDB_CLASSNOTREG
(0x80040154) on others.

I've looked in MSDN and searched newsgroups for answers but have not been
successful.
Can someone please help or share their experiences with MSXML 4.0, MSI
installations and
different Windows platforms.

BTW, on XP, is there a way to tell whether which MSXML 4.0 is being used,
the SXS or
the global one?


Please help...



WD.