Passing the bootstrapper window handle to subsequent processes in Wix5

[tom-englert]

I'm actually migrating my Wix BA to Wix5, and got stuck on this problem:

When upgrading an existing application, the bootstrapper process is started twice, and in the second process only OnPlanComplete is called.
Now from OnPlanComplete I call engine.Apply(_windowHandle), however since this is a new process, and Run has never been called in this process, the window handle is zero, and engine.Apply fails with an argument exception.

I can pass the handle to the second process using e.g. shared memory - then repair and upgrade work.

However I wonder if checking the window handle in engine.Apply is really correct, e.g. during a silent install there won't be a window and thus no window handle.

[petm2022]

I had the same issue when upgrading to Wix4. My solution was to use EnsureHandel().

In my Model class I added a property:
public IntPtr ViewWindowHandle { get; set; }

Then using this property in OnPlanComplete:
Engine.Apply(this.ViewWindowHandle);

In my Run function I assigned the propery:
model.ViewWindowHandle = new WindowInteropHelper(view).EnsureHandle();

Hope this will help you.