How to package the .NET Framework redistributable

[oliversaggau]

I'm migrating older WiX 3.x projects to WiX 4.x (as a first step), one of them included the .NET Framework redistributable. In WiX 3.x there was a way to package the redistributable but after migrating the project to WiX 4.x this results in an error

error WIX8004: The external Payload 'NetFx472Redist' has a duplicate Name 'redist\NDP472-KB4054530-x86-x64-AllOS-ENU.exe'. When building the bundle or laying out the bundle, the file will get overwritten.

When I simply remove the <PackageGroupRef Id="NetFx472RedistPayload"/> from my bundle, the NDP472-KB4054530-x86-x64-AllOS-ENU.exe will simply not be included in my bundle, i.e. it will be missing from my bundle and will be be downloaded on the end-user's machine I guess. How to package the .NET Framework redistributable with my bundle in WiX 4+?

[robmen]

IIRC, that's a new check in WiX v4+ catching a mistake that v3 didn't catch. Not sure from your snippet of code what is creating the issue. More context is probably necessary.

[oliversaggau]

The Bundle.wxs (coming from WiX 3.x) contained the following (in accordance with the WiX 3.x documentation)

<Chain>
    <PackageGroupRef Id="NetFx472Redist"/>
    ...
</Chain>

and

<Bundle>
    <PayloadGroup Id="NetFx472RedistPayload">
        <Payload Name="redist\NDP452-KB2901907-x86-x64-AllOS-ENU.exe"
                 SourceFile="X:\path\to\redists\NDP452-KB2901907-x86-x64-AllOS-ENU.exe"
                 Compressed="yes" />
    </PayloadGroup>
</Bundle>

I then used the HeatWave plugin to migrate the project from 3.x to 4.0.6 which migrated both the .wixproj and the Bundle.wxs to the new version. The .wixproj now has a NuGet reference to WixToolset.NetFx.wixext 4.0.6 and the snippets from above were not touched by HeatWave. I then manually appendend AsPrereq to the PackageGroupRef because my bundle has a managed bootstrapper and WiX 4.x requires a prereq-package for it

<Chain>
    <PackageGroupRef Id="NetFx472RedistAsPrereq"/>
    ...
</Chain>

That's about it. Trying to compile this Bundle.wxs leads to the error mentioned above. Which makes sense, since WixToolset.NetFx.wixext defines a payload with name redist\NDP452-KB2901907-x86-x64-AllOS-ENU.exe and my Bundle.wxs does, too. But that was the was the way we were supposed to do it in WiX 3.x and I guess we somehow have to do it differently in WiX 4+, but how?

[bevanweiss]

it might not be a perfect fit... but some of the internal WiX tests are probably good starting points
https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix/blob/main/src/ext/NetFx/test/WixToolsetTest.Netfx/TestData/UsingNetFxSearches/BundleLatest.wxs

If you feel that there is still a hole that the tests don't exercise, you're free to put together a test case and raise a PR to get it integrated :)

[nivinj]

Looks like this is referring to the scenario where the .Net Framework is packaged with the bundle
- e.g. for installation to an offline / air gapped machine. Wix 4+ doesn't appear to support this anymore?

[oliversaggau]

Yes, that was exactly what I was trying to ask in my initial post. Apparently I wasn't clear enough