Description Steve Francisco 2003-02-04 02:33:51 EST

If an optional feature is not installed, an attempt to patch the feature that 
includes the optional feature fails after pressing the "Install" button with 
the following message:
(X) Requested operation cannot be performed because it would invalidate the 
current configuration.
The details say:
<feature name> (version): Older version of feature "optional feature name 
(version)" must be present for a patch to be applied.

I have a simple example of this that I can supply.  The feature hierarchy looks 
like this:
   + master 1.0.0 (root feature)
   |
   '--+ ftrA 1.0.0  (feature that will be patched)
      |
      '--- ftrA.opt 1.0.0  (optional feature)

So feature "master" includes feature "ftrA" which optionally 
includes "ftrA.opt".  Now if a new patch (fix1) is attempted to install and has 
the following feature.xml, it will fail as described:
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <feature id="fix1" image="wsFeatUpdate.jpg"
        label="%featureName" provider-name="abc" version="1.0.0"
        colocation-affinity="master">
        <description>fix1 will install ftrA version 1.0.0.1</description>
        <license url="%licenseURL">This is for test purposes</license>
        <includes id="ftrA" match="equivalent" version="1.0.0.1"/>
        <requires>
            <import feature="master" version="1.0.0" patch="true"/>
        </requires>
        <plugin id="fix1" version="1.0.0"/>
    </feature>

Since ftrA.opt is optional, it should be acceptable to update ftrA independent 
of it.  It doesn't seem to matter if the patch="true" attribute is set.

This is a blocker because this blocks us from updating our product in the field.