WindowsAppRuntime with lower version will not install if higher version already installed

[rcohn]

Hi -

We are creating a C# WinUI3 desktop unpackaged app built with WindowsAppSDK 1.0.0.

The installer for this app copies the app artifacts (from the set built in proj\bin\x64\release\net5.0-windows.10.0.19041.0\win10-x64) to a target location. Part of the installation involves installing the version of WindowsAppRuntime that corresponds to the version of WindowsAppSDK used to build the app (in this case 1.0.0). A Start menu link is created to point to the app exe file.

This works OK, except when a higher version of WindowsAppRuntime is already installed**, in which case the WindowsAppRuntime will not be installed, and it complains about the higher version.**

In this case, seemingly the only recourse is to uninstall the existing WindowsAppRuntime packages, which is a tedious task and something that we can't expect the final user to perform.

Is there a way to install all of the necessary runtime components needed that isolates the app from any existing WindowsAppRuntime installed components? I did some quick testing with <WindowsAppSDKSelfContained> and, while it worked for a simple app built in the same way, it did not work for the product app (app crashed on startup).

I hope that you can give me some advice on the best way to install such an unpackaged WinUI3 app.

Thanks very much.

[DrusTheAxe]

This is a dupe of WindowsAppRuntime installation error: The package could not be installed because a higher version of this package is already installed. #2708 ?