We made some changes to the installation and updating process of our Windows app recently, and some users are now complaining that Windows sometimes automatically deletes the main application .exe file.
It usually occurs after users update app using built-in web update feature. The feature is implemented using .msi built in Advanced Installer tool.
We are struggling to figure out what is causing this, and haven't found a way to consistently reproduce the issue (though we've seen it happen as well).
Here's what changed with our installation and web updating process:
The main installer for our application is now a standard .msi, which becomes a part of the Windows installation system and is natively manageable by Group Policy and other system features, such as rollback or versions. In previous versions that did not have this problem, our installer was a .exe built with the SetupBuilder tool.
We introduced the redesigned web updater feature inside the app (to update to new versions within the app). It uses the same .msi as the main deliverable as for installation. .msi is downloaded from our server in a form of .exe which is then extracts MSI and starts it. MSI then updates file in our installation. These .exe and .msi is built with Advanced Installer tool which provides such a web update feature to developers. In previous versions that did not have this problem, our web update feature was developed with SetupBuilder tool which provided a custom web update files - .exe web updater that downloads a number of web update files containing patch to our app.
The goal of a transition to the standard .msi installer was to make it easy for our clients to deploy the app in organizations - say, mass deploy using group policies and other similar tools.
Has anyone else experienced a problem like this? Any ideas on how to troubleshoot and try to reproduce?
Theory: Before doing anything else: The first thing I would ask the people who report the problem is if they have re-packaged your older, legacy (non-MSI) setup to be their own MSI file? This can cause a well-known upgrade problem along the lines of what you explain (file missing). Please check first. Tell them to uninstall the existing version and then install the new one - that is the simplest way. Not always enough (some obscure problems possible).
Mismatched component GUIDs could cause missing files after upgrade, as could file version downgrade scenarios and various other technicalities. You could try to install to a new default location on disk to avoid these problems. The reason this can work is very technical and hard to explain tersely. Essentially you de-couple yourself from "the sins of the past". It is generally enough to change the name of the file in question: for example MyApp.exe to MyAppNew.exe or maybe add the major version: MyApp5.exe, but maybe try the folder change first ProgramFiles\MyCompany\MyApp => ProgramFiles\MyCompany\MyApp5.
How do you configure your upgrade? View "Upgrades", what is selected: "Uninstall old version first and then install new version" or "Install new version first and then uninstall old version".
Blog Entry:: Why Windows Installer removes files during a major upgrade if they go backwards in version numbers (might be of help).
Deployment Debugging: For open ended debugging of MSI and deployment problems in general one obviously needs to gather intel and that means logging and system inspection.
Logging: First try to get a proper log file for the systems where this problem occurs. In Advanced Installer you can tick the "Enable verbose logging" in the Install Parameters view to enable verbose logging for all package installations. This adds the MsiLogging property to the compiled MSI and every installation of the MSI will cause a MSI log file with a random name to be created in the TMP folder. View the folder, sort by date and the file should be at the top. Suggest you do this and then tell the users to send you the log files when relevant. Maybe you have this setting enabled already?
Further Logging: There are many ways to enable logging, and you can find a description here: Enable installation logs for MSI installer without any command line arguments. The MsiLogging property is just one possibility.
To log a single MSI setup: http://www.installsite.org/pages/en/msifaq/a/1022.htm.
To enable global logging for all MSI operations on the machine: Please see this FAQ-entry from installsite.org, section "Globally for all setups on a machine" - for the exact procedure.
How to interpret an MSI Log File.
Related
When i try to start one application (for instance application A.exe) error was throwing from already installed msi file (for Ex: B.msi) as "The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable or enter an alternate path to a folder containing the installation package 'B.msi'"
I have read some articles related to this error but all of them explaining if installer have any issues (if file have been damaged, deleted, moved, or quarantined by an anti-virus application) this error will occur but here when I try to launch one application then it is showing above mentioned error with another package name (B.msi) which I already installed.
Please let me know the cause of this issue it would be helpful to trace out this issue.
Note: For older version of our application don't have this issue (For creating installer earlier we have used Wise tool now using WIX tool. Is there any issue with WIX installer?).
Self-Repair Problems: This is generally a self-repair issue. I have written more times about this than I care to count, I'll see if I can send you here: MSI self-repair - the scourge of society.
Explanation: What is actually happening is that your installation goes through an integrity check when launced via an advertised shortcut, and a resource is found to be missing. The MSI will then try to repair itself (self-repair), but it is unable to find the required source files to retrieve the file it needs to reinstall - since the source files are no longer available at the location where you installed from. It is a good idea to install from a permanently available network location using administrative installations - especially for corporations.
Missing Source Files Resolution: In your case - to sort out the missing source files - you can either uninstall and reinstall (uninstall should not need source access in normal cases), and then preserve the installation files at a permanently available location (solving the problem for the future), or you can browse to the installation source when you are prompted to do so for your current installation (and there are some ways to automate setting new source paths). The installation source must be the one used to install the software originally (unless you know how to hack it, which is very involved).
Self-Repair Resolution: To sort out the actual self-repair conflict, you essentially need to find the culprit component causing the repair in the event viewer and then find some way to resolve the situation. All linked or explained in the above answer (repeated here). Proposed "real-world solutions" can be found in section 5 here: What do I do when launching an application triggers repeating, endless Windows Installer self-repair? As a workaround, you might want to try to launch the EXE files in question directly, to verify that the self-repair does not happen (generally this will prevent the self-repair, but it can still happen if there is a COM conflict or some other advanced conflict).
You can see a list of "Primary Cause of Self-Repair" some way down in this answer: How can I determine what causes repeated Windows Installer self-repair? (bad MSI packages with conflicting resources - COM conflicts?, security software quarantining files unexpectedly, cleanup scripts wrecking havoc, etc...). I would recommend you skim this list for ideas.
Uninstall Problems: This "installation source not found" problem can also occur so it prevents uninstall in special cases. Here is an answer which tries to summarize aspects of this problem: Powershell Silent Uninstall "Microsoft Report Viewer Runtime 2012" (somewhat too elaborate, but worth skimming I think).
Some Links (for reference and easy retrieval):
Installshield 2013 Installscript MSI: Wrong .msi location during Repair
Wix / MSI : Unable to uninstall
Uninstall without an MSI file
When I try and apply a minor upgrade to my application, I launch the installer and (depending upon the combination of settings I try) I get either a:
repair/remove dialog
prompt for the install directory
I don't believe I should get either of these prompts. I'm mostly expecting the installer to automatically apply the upgrade and not prompt for anything. I think I'm doing everything correctly in the Visual Studio setup project:
upgraded the version from 1.0.0 to 1.1.0
left the product code the same
updated the package code
left the upgrade code the same
launch the installer with the parameters REINSTALLMODE=vomus REINSTALL=ALL
I've tried just about every combination of codes/flags and techniques, but cannot seem to get the update applied.
Any ideas of what else I can try?
To get it to work I:
upgraded the version from 1.0.0 to 1.1.0
left the product code the same (said No when prompted by Visual Studio)
updated the package code (Visual Studio did this automatically)
did not change the upgrade code
launch the installer with the parameters REINSTALLMODE=vomus REINSTALL=ALL
Just as I had indicated in my question, and it seems to be working. I can successfully apply an upgrade. However, when I run the installer I am still prompted with a repair/remove option. But, that's a different question I guess.
Just first things first: Are you sure you haven't re-used the package GUID in both MSI files, or at some point during deployment work and testing?
Try rebuilding both MSI files with new GUIDs to "de-couple" them from any existing cached versions and then try test installing again. Change both the package code and product code. Better yet: test these new versions on a clean virtual machine to ensure a proper test environment unaffected by past sins. Your developer system could have gremlins in its Windows installer database due to package guid clashes. If this is the case package installation becomes total XFiles - the strangest things can happen.
More details:
If the package GUID is the same for two MSI files, Windows Installer will treat them as the same file by definition - no matter what they contain. This can cause all kinds of strange problems that are hard to clean up and debug. Note that this can happen even if you just forgot to update it once since installation of an MSI will cause it to be cached on the system in the C:\Windows\Installer folder (this folder is hidden and protected). This cached copy will be re-used if an MSI file with the same GUID is launched (at least this was the case for earlier versions of Windows Installer - there could be fixes for this now).
If you are using Installshield you should enable the "always generate packaging GUID" feature to ensure this never happens. Package GUID should always change for every single build - there is no reason whatsoever to keep it hard coded. I believe WIX takes care of generating the package GUID automagically, unless you specifically override it.
We have an installer solution written in Visual Studio 2005 Installer; that calls a C# custom action and we have hit a known issue, regarding the fact that on an upgrade - the old install code is run and not the new code, because Windows is running a cached version of the custom action dll. We know this and although not over the moon about it - we have moved on.
When we release a new version of the installer and a user runs it, we now want it to check to see if an ealier version is installed - if there is one; we want to display a message telling them that they have to remove the old version via Add/Remove Programs. We know if they do a manual uninstall followed by an install, then all is fine and dandy - BUT it doesn't matter how many times we tell our users, via documentation; that this is what they have to do - they will still try and just run the new installer, without removing the old version first.
Therefore, we would like to put up a message and thus force them to to what they are told !! I've seen some installers do this ( though of course not sure what installer package was used to create these ). We only have VS 2005 and of course orca !!
Cheers,
Chris.
This can be done through a custom launch condition:
create a search which determines if the old version is installed (you can search for a component, registry entry or file)
use the search property as a custom launch condition
For example, if the search property is OLD_VERSION, the launch condition can look like this:
Condition: NOT OLD_VERSION
Description: An older version was found. Please uninstall it using "Programs and Features" in Control Panel.
When OLD_VERSION property is set to a value (an older version is found), this launch condition will show the message and stop the install process.
This doesn't quite make sense. Have you remembered to change the package GUID in your new setup? The package GUID identifies a specific setup file, and if two MSI files have identical GUID they will be treated as the same file regardless of whether they are or not. This could trigger a cached version of the MSI to be invoked and all sorts of hell breaks loose.
I would recommend reading up on "major upgrades" which will allow automatic uninstall of the existing version before the new version is installed. You also need to make sure you understand the basics of the technology before deploying to the wild. You must NEVER use identical package GUIDs for any MSI files. It's practically always wrong, and will lead to very mysterious problems.
I can't write up the whole major upgrade solution here, but basically it involves authoring the "Upgrade" table of your MSI to detect versions to uninstall. You need to change the package code, product code and version number (only 3 digits matter) and keep the same upgrade code (two MSI files with the same upgrade code "know" they are related - i.e they are from the same product family). Check MSDN for samples of major upgrades.
NB! If you have deployed MSI files with duplicate package GUIDs to your developer machine, it could have stray installs that must be cleaned up with MSIZap or similar. Use caution, or better yet test your new installer on a clean test system. Developer systems are full of junk and not generally good for MSI testing.
I currently have a project with an installer I made with NSIS, but I would like to have an update to new versions that only has the changed files and will show a changelog. The target platform is windows. What methods/suggestions do you have to do this?
You might want to reconsider using NSIS. If you are into patching and distributing updates you will probably get the most benefit from using an installer technology that utilises the Windows Installer capabilities (msiexec).
NSIS is basically a program that runs and does what you want whereas a Windows Installer type installer forces you to split your application into features and components which can be managed by the windows installer msi service. MSI will track things like what versions of products you have installed, whether running the installer again will run in maintenance mode, whether you are allowed to install 2 products of different versions, whether a patch can be applied to a particular version of a product or any other question relating to updates and installs.
Basically most of the stuff you are requesting will be available out-of-the-box if you change to a Windows Installer technology. Whereas if you use NSIS (which doesn't use Windows Installer technology) then you will have to implement it all yourself.
Just as an example there is a pretty comprehensive installer builder called AdvancedInstaller ( http://www.advancedinstaller.com/ ) that sounds like what you want.
Alternatively, if you want to spend the rest of your life trawling forums and newsgroups then there is an open source product called WiX that does something similar ;)
In spite of my previous comment I have written a 5000 line installer using NSIS with 13 custom pages. I have even looked at patching and it's a bit of a hack. The main bit of advice is to make sure you are patching the version you think you are patching then use one of the patching plugins available.
There are several patching technologies that compare files and produce patch change files and the NSIS code required to "install" them. I have found that NSIS Patch Gen did what I wanted pretty well with the least amount of hassle. The documentation is a bit thin but once you figure it out you think "Oh yeh".
You are probably going to have a little bit of trouble with an automatically generated Change Log. I would suggest that you create the Change Log yourself (or at least add the extra changes to it with each application change you make) and just include it as if it was a normal application file and let the patch generator update it.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/nsispatchgen/
One possible way would be to store an XML file on your download server that has each released version and a list of files that changed for each release. The installer would write a registry key on install of the version of files it installed.
Then, on update, the installer downloads and parses the XML file, and finds any nodes that have higher version numbers than what is currently installed. You display all the files in a text box on an installer page, and when the user confirms, the installer downloads all the files, and then updates the registry to the latest version.
are you familiar with cURL?
http://www.shininglightpro.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html
http://curl.haxx.se/download.html#openssl
it will download any protocol, and you can use it to download your files. it's a commandline app.
in the installer, schedule a program which should check first to see if the main program is running or not and quit if it is running if not, calls curl to download a batch file from your site with the updates, then runs the batch file.
the batch file it downloads updates the app by downloading the correct files using curl.
the process should run maybe every 2 weeks or once a month, depending on how often you update.
the uninstall part of the installer should be capable of removing all parts of the app in question,including any updates. this can be accomplished by removing all files from that subdir of program files.
RMDir /r /REBOOTOK '$INSTDIR'
RMDir /r /REBOOTOK "$SMPROGRAMS\$StartMenuFolder"
Delete '$SMPROGRAMS\$StartMenuFolder\gpl3license.lnk'
Delete '$SMPROGRAMS\$StartMenuFolder\readme.lnk'
Delete '$SMPROGRAMS\$StartMenuFolder\${PRODUCT_TITLE}.lnk'
DeleteRegKey HKCU "Software\Your major subkey\${PRODUCT_NAME}"
DeleteRegKey HKLM "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\${PRODUCT_NAME}"
DeleteRegKey /ifempty HKCU "Software\${PRODUCT_NAME}"
PRODUCT_NAME is a !define I made because I use these nsi files like a template.
this is only a piece of the installer file's uninstaller section.
I've been able to create a patch updater program for my Windows app (a CLI which uses NSIS as its installer) by releasing the app to my personal CDN (or some hosting platform) and taking advantage of Node.js modules like path to replace the binary (using a similar procedure to equinox.io) with a given version from the CDN and winreg to update the Windows Registry accordingly. Since I've namespaced my Windows Registry key, the uninstaller still works for it.
If anyone wants more details on this, please ask. I'm happy to help.
Some compilers like Delphi make a lot of changes in the final executable even if you change a little part of your code.
So first you should see if it worth patching.
Another consideration is patching by itself.
Patching maybe blocked by some Anti Virus Software specially in some system folders.
and finally incremental patching data size can grow beyond the original files.
Based on above subjects I don't suggest you patching.
Use full installers instead
I often get a problem with Windows Installer trying to uninstall a package, but it complains that:
The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable.
Is there a known means of uninstalling such packages when the original MSI is simply not available?
Please note that Microsoft has now released an official tool to resolve these issues, without the problems that previously existed with MSIZAP.
Microsoft Fixit: Fix problems with programs that can't be installed or uninstalled
Take a look at a tool called MSIZap released by Microsoft.
UPDATE:
MsiZap.exe has been deprecated for quite some time. Its use is unsupported on all recent versions of Windows, and it is considered a very unsafe tool to use.
I added a link to a newer Microsoft support tool designed to clean out installations, but this tool also appears deprecated at this point. I have removed the link from the comments section.
Perhaps try the tool linked to in saschabeaumont's answer below.
FYI, this post explains the root problem https://superuser.com/q/293542/245923
You can uninstall it using the product code:
msiexec.exe /x {your-product-code-guid}
You would obtain this code from the MSI itself, or whatever tool you are using to build the MSI.
Note that when you uninstall a product, it uses a cached MSI, since only the original MSI knows how to uninstall itself. When you use the product code, it uses the cached MSI from C:\WINDOWS\Installer.
Update, Stein Åsmul: There is a whole list of cleanup approaches here (recommended).
UPDATE:
This newer support tool can be tried on recent Windows versions if you have defunct MSI packages needing uninstall. This new tool appears to have been deprecated as well.
Perhaps try the tool linked to in saschabeaumont's answer.
It is not normal or standard MSI behavior to ask for the original source media - it indicates a badly designed MSI package. If you experience this with a vendor MSI it is highly recommended that you report the problem to their support team. Here is a more comprehensive explanation of the problem: Why does MSI require the original .msi file to proceed with an uninstall?
In most cases MSI packages can be uninstalled from add/remove programs from the control panel even if you don't have the original installation database for the MSI - the uninstall is run from a cached copy of the original MSI in the system folder %SystemRoot%\Windows\Installer (in some cases this cached MSI could be missing, see section 12 here for potential causes).
Earlier versions of MSI tended to trigger this problem (asking for the original installation media) more often (Office back in the day), and legacy MSI files can still cause uninstall problems that can only be solved using the msizap.exe tool (this tool is deprecated, outdated and no longer supported). This command line tool (msizap.exe) also had a GUI available (MSICUU2.exe), both tools are deprectated (try the link to the new cleanup tool listed above).
Just for the record: If you have access to the original MSI that was actually used to install the product, you can use this to run the uninstall. It must be the exact MSI that was used, and not just a similar one. There is a unique package guid assigned to each MSI file, so Windows will know if it is the right one.
Related answers:
wix - custom action dialogbox on silent uninstall of application
Uninstalling an MSI file from the command line without using msiexec
You didn't do something crazy like go to C:\Windows\Installer\ and delete the files in there did you?
One drawback of MSI files is you need the complete MSI file in order to uninstall or repair the application. Windows loves to store a copy of the MSI. It also renames the MSI file from a common name to a GUID with no table (that I can find) to map original names (example: Office2010.msi) to the new GUID so you have a PC with many GBs of wasted space that you can't delete. A machine that's not even 1 year old can easily hit 8 GB (example: mine).
There is an MSI cleanup utility from Microsoft, Windows Installer Cleanup Utility (deprecated tool, unsupported and unsafe to use - perhaps try this answer instead: Uninstall without an MSI file).
Or CCleaner can usually do this
Control Panel --> Add/Remove programs?
EDIT:
Your post mentions nothing about using add remove programs to uninstall the app, you said the "Windows Installer" (MSIEXEC - see the link below), which is not the same thing.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa367988(VS.85).aspx