I've been doing it for years without problems. InstallShield has a feature called `Always Overwrite` that essentially does this.
The downside to going this is if the file does contain user data, it will get wasted unless you have a harvest/configure pattern to go before and after the file copy. The downside there is you have to know every attribute that is customizable and explictly preserve it. The downside to not doing this is if the file does contain user data, it'll never get updated to a newer version of the shipped file. You could easily argue that there should really then be 2 files ... stock.textfile and userdata.textfile but that requires effort on the upstream application developers and you may or may not have much luck there. Christopher Painter, Author of Deployment Engineering Blog Have a hot tip, know a secret or read a really good thread that deserves attention? E-Mail Me --- On Thu, 7/3/08, Evans, Jim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Evans, Jim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [WiX-users] Forcing overwrite of text file > To: "General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset." > <wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net> > Date: Thursday, July 3, 2008, 10:20 AM > If I have a text file (or other unversioned resource) that I > want to > overwrite during a minor update, is it ok to give the file > a "version" > using the DefaultVersion attribute of the File element? It > seems like > this works and forces the overwrite only if I increment the > pseudo-version. I just want to make sure I'm not doing > something > outlandishly nonstandard. > > > > --Jim Evans > > Numara Software Inc. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Sponsored by: SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards: VOTE > NOW! > Studies have shown that voting for your favorite open > source project, > along with a healthy diet, reduces your potential for > chronic lameness > and boredom. Vote Now at > http://www.sourceforge.net/community/cca08 > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsored by: SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards: VOTE NOW! Studies have shown that voting for your favorite open source project, along with a healthy diet, reduces your potential for chronic lameness and boredom. Vote Now at http://www.sourceforge.net/community/cca08 _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
