On Sep 16, 4:30*pm, livingstone <livingstone_a...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Thanks again for your thoughts and time LoZ and Phil ...
>
> I agree that cashed version of the MSI will be used the second time
> around. I am good with that in all of my scenarios because cashed MSI
> is IDENTICAL to the MSI running II time around. I think our our
> conversation might be coming down to what REPAIR really means. The way
> I see it REPAIR consists of:
>
> A - "replenishing" of any missing files (target files manually deleted
> after the first/clean install) and
> B - firing of custom actions
>
> When running with UI and selecting REPAIR explicitly, both A and B
> happen (I see this as a full repair)
> When running from the command line with /I, both A and B happen (I see
> this as a full repair)
> When running from the command line with /I /PASSIVE, only A happens (I
> see this as a partial repair).
I was with you up until you said that running from the command line
with /I /passive when the app is already installed puts the missing
files back down. This does not happen in my experience. Running an
advertised shortcut belonging to the app will "self heal" as long as
the missing files are keypaths for components. Broadly speaking.
A lot of what you need to know is held in the logs. Windows Installer
does a great job of logging loads more information than you could
possibly need if you tell it to. At the command line I think the most
verbose option is to tag "/l*xv <path to log>" at the end.