MSI: Admin install doesn’t extract all files…

While working with a Patch using Wix Patching, I did an Admin Install. But Pyro.exe complains that some files cannot be found. When I searched these in the output directory where Admin Installation deployed its files, those files were really missing. These were however present in msi and mentioned in Files table.

After some investigation, I got to know that the Feature with which these were attached, had a default Level=0 (Level 0 would disable the feature and so it will never install) and that’s the main cause that Admin Install was not installing these files.

So, by using Microsoft Orca, I simply changed the value in level Column from 0 to 3. (Or any other value greater than 0).

And now Admin Install worked accordingly and Pyro.exe was also happy to give me my required patch.

There might be many reasons for keeping a Feature Level=0. During installation, there might be some Custom Action changing the Level or any condition accordingly. And that Custom Action or Condition might not be evaluated/scheduled during Admin Install.