Automating wix small updates and minor upgrades

Question

I just read the following in the wix tutorial

For some strange reason, small updates and minor upgrades cannot be run simply by clicking on the .msi file—they give the error: "Another version of this product is already installed." We know, stupid... Anyway, you have to start it with the command:

msiexec /i SampleUpgrade2.msi REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=vomus

Don't ask me how this would fare with the average user... You'd better start it from an Autorun.inf file or devise an outer Setup.exe shell to launch it.

We want people to be able to download the most recent version of our app and install it, even if they have an older version already installed. How do you normally deal with this?

Answer 1

One word: bootstrapper. The WiX toolset has a simple bootstrapper right now (John Robbin's has a nice write up about setupbld.exe). In the future, Burn will do this and more.

Answer 2

I'm surprised Rob didn't answer with the same answer as he did to my question, as it was basically the same question:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/775259/wix-always-overwrite-the-previous-version