2 replies to this topic

[Tony Patterson]

Hi,

Using InstallShield 10.5 Basic MSI:

We have been using Patch Design through automation to build small and minor updates for our product. Just recently we have discovered some corruption in the resulting .msp. Some of the included files are showing binary differences from the source files. It is not necessarily the same files every time. For example we have some files which are installed to two different locations on the target system. The source file is the same but yet in the compressed msp, one of the files is okay and the other is corrupt.
One thing we have noticed is that this is the biggest patch we have delivered, at 115Mb. Is there some kind of size limitation on msp files over which corruption could happen? I haven't been able to find anything. I also read that there is a microsoft hotfix (kb920958) on Windows 2000 (our build machine) which can cause corruption using NTFS file compression. Does the patching process which bundles the files into a CAB use NTFS file compression?

Has anyone seen this before or have any ideas?

Thanks
Tony

[Glytzhkof]

Are you installing these identical files using the MSI Duplicate file feature or simply adding the same file twice? I can picture quite a bit of blues if two identical files are binary patched while delivered from the same media table entry. Doesn't sound good. I think it would be better if MSI "knew" that the file was identical.

[Tony Patterson]

Thanks for your reply.
They are being installed sinply by adding the same file twice. Actually we have been doing it this way and patching for 18 months successfully. Only just now has there been this problem. Quite vexing.

Thanks
Tony