Creating a WiX patch from single file location

Question

I am trying to create a patch for my application. Implementing the example described here worked as expected. However, the files for each version are stored in separate directories. Version 1.0 files are in c:sample\1.0 and 1.1 files are in c:sample\1.1. If I move the files to a single location, create the 1.0 installer, modify the files, and create the 1.1 installer; wixmst output of torch contains no differences. When I run pyro I get:

warning PYRO1079 : The cabinet 'media1.cab' does not contain any files. If this patch contains no files, this warning can likely be safely ignored. Otherwise, try passing -p to torch.exe when first building the transforms, or add a ComponentRef to your PatchFamily authoring to pull changed files into the cabinet.

This is a problem for me because the files for my project are kept in a single git repository. We use branching and tagging to delineate versions. Because of this I only have one directory of files.

I have the .msi and .wixpdb for both versions.

How can I create my patch in this situation?

Answer 1

Pyro requires access to the .wixmst and the old and new files. If you only have one set of files (newer or older) then the patch will obviously find no file differences. That is why you are getting the error from Pyro.

If you use bindpaths to create the original .msi files (and their .wixpdbs) then you can provide the old paths using the -bt switch to pyro and the new paths to the -bu switch. If you didn't use bindpaths and you need to recreate the old directory structure for the old files and create a new directory structure for the new files.

If you can't get the old and new files to be found (bindpaths work best) then you'll have to do admin image type patching.