Counting package references

Some of the dependencies you install, such as SQL Server, may be used by several different software bundles. For example, you might have an application that stores customer records in the database. Later on, another piece of software is installed that stores log information in that same SQL Server instance. You may not want to remove it until all interested parties have been uninstalled. For example, uninstalling the logging piece shouldn't remove the SQL instance because the customer records software is still using it.

To solve these sorts of dependency issues, Burn provides an element for package reference counting as part of its DependencyExtension. To use it, first add a reference in your Burn project to DependenyExtension. Then, update the Wix element to contain the new namespace, as shown:

<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi" xmlns:dep="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/DependencyExtension">

Next, add a Provides element inside the ExePackage...