MSI Labels and Updates

Question

We have an installer for the application that is compiled using WiX, and each version is updated using a new installation package. The installer creates the advertised shortcut in the Start menu, and users often copy this shortcut to the desktop or other place. During the application update, the main update is performed and old shortcuts are deleted, which leads to the disappearance of the ones copied by users. This is a serious annoyance for users.

• Is there a way to update the advertised shortcuts while doing a basic MSI update (i.e. a different product code)?
• Or is there a way to allow minor updates by simply running setup.msi (without passing the REINSTALLMODE option on the command line)?
• Or is this the only way to solve this problem using non-advertised labels?

Answer 1

There are apparently only two solutions:

• Use non-advertised labels, which we ultimately decided to do.
• Use a bootloader that allows you to install small updates, i.e. setting REINSTALLMODE = vomus when a previous installation is detected. This should be achievable using dotNetInstaller ( http://dotnetinstaller.codeplex.com/ ) or Burn (to exit with WiX 3.6).