InstallAware

Yes, excellent investigation! I finally got a chance to verify this. I didn't test Visual Studio installation...

Here are my observations:

- Orca could not be installed if InstallAware was running.
- After installing Orca, any project with any msm module added to it would not compile.
- Installing Orca first did not cause a problem.

At the very least, it's good to have this documented, but I'll notify our developers and see if there's nothing we can do about it.

I think if you build against the newer COM dll all will suddenly get fixed

This is a follow up - has this been fixed?

Dear CFConner,

I am not sure whether this has been fixed, however you can work around this easily as noted in the thread (in fact, I am using both InstallAware and Orca and never encountered problems).

Our company just purchased IA Studio and just today I ran into this problem. I had no problem compiling a project with 32 bit merge modules but got the error (mentioned several times above) when compiling an identical project with 64 bit merge modules. I spent a good bit of time searching the forums and when I ran across this thread I simply couldn't believe that an issue such as this, identified 3 years ago, has not been fixed.

If you are not going to fix this issue, please at least put a note somewhere in the documentation about the workaround.

Otherwise I am very happy with this product.

Thanks,

Steve

Dear Steve,

I just tried to add a x64 merge module (Microsoft_VC100_MFC_x64.msm) to a test project, and I am able to build the project correctly using the latest IA version (18.08). In addition, with the generated package the above runtimes get installed correctly on a target x64 OS.

For your convenience, you can find the test project attached (includes the used merge module within the project folder).

Regards

Since today I get the error:

"Unable to merge Windows Installer database with module Microsoft_VC100_ATL_x86"

On monday the setup builds fine and the merge modules were intergrated correct. I have not changed anything in the project.
I also tried to reintegrate the MergeModules but always during built I get the above error message and build process stops.

What could be the reason?!

I am using IA 17.9.20.13

EDIT: on another computer the installation was building without problems. What can I do? Reinstall IA?

Dear Alibaba,

Honestly ... it really quite strange... you could try with reinstalling IA, but I am not quite sure you will be able to solve the issue.

Could be even this one an Anti Virus related issue?

Regards

Hi Francesco,

Thanks for the response, sorry it took me awhile to get back.

The way I got my 64 bit merge modules to compile was to implement the workaround mentioned earlier in this thread. I renamed mergemod.dll (found in C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\MSI Tools) and copied the IA dll of the same name into that location. To test your sample project I simply reversed that workaround and tried to compile your project. However, I still get the same error, Error during build: Unable to merge Windows Installer database with module Microsoft_VC100_MFC_x64.

If I reinstate the workaround everything works fine. I am using 32 bit Windows 7, that may have something to do with it.

It is simply a dll hell issue where two ActiveX dlls with the same name exist on the same machine.

Cheers,

Steve

Dear Steve,

many thanks for reporting it ... it'll be useful to anyone that may have the same problem.

Regards

My IA is working well again. I am quite sure that is related to Adaware or Malwarebytes AntiMalware. Because I did a system cleaning with this two programs and afterwards IA brought the above error. After reinstalling InstallAware is was working well again.