RFC: reducing wasted disk space from addon files

[Hans Leidekker]

On Wed, 2019-03-27 at 09:31 -0500, Vincent Povirk wrote:
> It hadn't occurred to me to cross-compile a custom action dll.
> 
> Would it be possible to skip certain actions like RegisterProduct, so
> the files are extracted but the msi isn't actually "installed" at the
> end? I'd want to make sure the files aren't accidentally removed when
> a new version is installed, or a user pokes around in wine
> uninstaller.

You could add a 'NOT EXTRACT_ONLY' condition to the relevant actions
and then pass EXTRACT_ONLY=1 on the command line.

I don't see why you need that though, because proper upgrade handling
would already make sure that files aren't removed if they are still in
use (through the reference count). The same goes for removals.

Blocking removals is also possible. Are accidental removals really a
problem though? There might be good reasons to remove wine-mono, why
make that harder? If you want to make it resilient I think a better
option would be to reinstall the package next time mono is needed.