ICE30 when compiling with two Merge Modules

Question

I am receiving an ICE30 when I am trying to compile my WiX installer project. The complete error is below:

 ICE30: The target file 'DPFPSH~1.DLL|DPFPShrNET.dll' is installed in         
'[TARGETDIR]\Windows\DPDrv\' by two different components on an SFN system: 
'DPFPShrNET.DA2BFC77_FAFE_41D1_8BB6_134232B2EADC' and 
'DPFPShrXTypeLibNET.51D3E534_F1F9_4BC6_BFC5_B27F733081C7'. This breaks component reference
 counting.

Now the peculiar thing is that these two components belong to two different merge modules, DPOTDotNet.msm and DPOTShrDotNet.msm. When viewed in Orca, the two components in question, DPFPShrNet (which is part of DPOTShrDotNet.msm) has a dll of the same name associated with it (DPFPShrNet.dll as seen in the file table), while DPFPShrXTypeLibNet also has a one dll of the same name associated with it (DPFPShrXTypeNet.dll). I do not see two DPFPShrNet.dll's being installed as the error says.

We are migrating away from InstallShield and into WiX, and the InstallShield ism file references these two merge modules and they both install correctly using that method. Is there some reason why WiX thinks two files of the same name are being installed? As soon as I remove DpOTShrDotNet.msm from my project, it compiles correctly, but I am missing the DPFPShrNet.dll in the GAC after I install.

Answer 1

ICE's are validation (unit tests) not compilation. Some of the ICEs are known to have bugs / design shortfalls. You should be able to ignore this one. Third party merge modules can be problematic though so you might want to look for an exe/msi redist installer for these components instead. Another possibility is to wrap these MSM's into their own MSI's and use WiX burn chainer to link it all together. This provides some separation / firewall / mitigation to the risks.