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Asked: 2026-05-10T22:31:20+00:00

Update: looks like this is indeed a WiX limitation – Cannot add 64bit com+

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Update: looks like this is indeed a WiX limitation – Cannot add 64bit com+ component (3.0.3907.0)

I have a .NET application with an MSI installer created using WiX 2.0. The installer creates a COM+ application (amongst other things) and installs a .NET assembly as a component into this application. This DLL is pure managed, however it calls into a mixed DLL which may be 32-bit or 64-bit. On a 32-bit platform everything works fine. On 64-bit however, the COM+ dllhost.exe process runs as 32-bit and subsequently fails to load the native DLL. When I look in the registry I can see that the COM+ component DLL has been registered under the Wow6432Node key and I presume that’s why dllhost is running as 32-bit.

If I use the Component Services snap-in to remove and re-add the DLL it all gets registered properly in the ‘real’ registry and dllhost starts as 64-bit. How do I get the installer to do the same, ie. register it properly as a 64-bit DLL? I’ve already set the Package Platform attribute to ‘x64′ and set the Win64=’yes’ attribute for every Component, but these didn’t seem to help.

The WiX source for the COM+ component looks like this:

      <Component Id='C_My.Server.dll_ComPlus' Guid='0117c6c5-387a-4b67-9a7f-273d5db3affd' Win64='yes'>         <File Id='F_My.Server.dll_ComPlus' Name='SERVER.DLL' LongName='My.Server.dll' Vital='yes' KeyPath='yes'               Assembly='no' DiskId='1' Source='..\Server\bin\$(var.Configuration)\' />         <pca:ComPlusApplication Id='MyServerComPlusApp' Name='My Server' RunForever='yes'           ApplicationDirectory='[INSTALLDIR]ComPlusConfig' ApplicationAccessChecksEnabled='no'           Identity='[ComPlusUserName]' Password='[ComPlusPassword]'>           <pca:ComPlusAssembly Id='MyServerComPlusAssembly' DllPath='[#F_My.Server.dll_ComPlus]'             TlbPath='[#F_My.Server.tlb_ComPlus]' Type='.net' RegisterInCommit='yes'>             <pca:ComPlusComponent Id='CheckInterface' CLSID='d4cf3da5-83ad-4436-b174-eccdb121a9ea' />           </pca:ComPlusAssembly>         </pca:ComPlusApplication>       </Component>
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1 Answer

  1. More likely than not this is a deficiency in the COM+ CustomAction. It probably only supports 32-bit code right now.

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