WIX force installation of a component with lower version number

Question

I'm using AjaxControlToolkit and they decided to change their version numbering scheme. The change is documented here : http://stephenwalther.com/archive/2013/01/24/new-january-2013-release-of-the-ajax-control-toolkit.aspx

Basicaly, the newer versions have a lower file version (4.1.7.123 is newer than 4.1.60501.0, but 7 is smaller than 60501.) Obviously, this causes issues in my MSI as it is now seeing a component with an higher version number already on the machine and thus ouputs this:

MSI (s) (7C:10) [10:04:14:996]: Disallowing installation of component: {22C7D2FC-179E-515D-B650-CE20A7B3F9E0} since the same component with higher versioned keyfile exists

How would i go and force the installation of this newer but lower-version-number component ?

P.S. Personal rant: AjaxControlToolkit guys for justifying this number by saying "And yes, I realize that 7.0123 is less than 60,919, but we ran out of numbers.". 4.2.7.123 would have worked, guys. You ran out of 3rd numbers, fine, you need to increment the 2nd.

Answer 1

Easiest thing to do is to install to a new location. That will avoid the checks completely. A hacked thing to do is to fake the File.Version column in the MSI but that will only get you through this once, eventually you'll need to get to a new location to address the problem.

You could also set the REINSTALLMODE to include "a" but that will just create all sorts of grief for you lately, so I can't really recommend that as an option.

Note: The AjaxControlToolkit guys did give you a huge headache. If they renamed their .dll, that would be the most helpful. Seems like the least they could do since they just broke their world so badly.