Install two mutually-exclusive files with the same name to the same directory

Question

My program deploys with a configuration option that I've chosen to expose as a feature. This option can be one of two values.

Each configuration changes a set of settings files. They have different input file names (for the sake of example, let's call it option1-config20-lv80.xml), but should be installed to the configuration directory as config20-lv80.xml. Each option has a prefix that should be stripped like that, which also means only one of these options can be selected for install at a time. However, even with conditions preventing the install of one feature when the other is selected, my output is littered with:

LGHT0204: ICE30: The target file 'config20-lv80.xml' is installed in 'path' by to different components... This breaks component reference counting.

How can I give my users the option to choose between these configuration options and get around my ICE30 issues without any negative side effects?

I saw an similar question answered, but I'm not 100% sure how to implement it in wix#, or if there are other ways open to me to achieve my goal without disabling ICE30 validation or creating 2 installers.

Regularly

Answer 1

A bit rushed, have a look...

Milk & Honey Winnie: In cases like this I prefer to install both files with different names using two different components and then switch between them with an option shown in the application itself. On launch or in the preferences. Makes deployment simpler, it is already complex (section "The Complexity of Deployment"). The linked answer you refer to can work technically, as can more hacky approaches.

Alternatives: I have a long answer here on different ways to install settings files: Create folder and file on Current user profile, from Admin Profile ranging from eliminating the whole file and using internal defaults, to downloading settings files from the network or just relying on clouded web-service settings retrieval from a database. Not 100% match, but maybe give it a skim?

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A related issue is when you have a settings file that regular users can't write to. This is a list of approaches for eliminating that condition: System.UnauthorizedAccessException while running .exe under program files.

Diachronic

Your first option is the way I'd prefer to do it too. But that isn't the way the client wants it. And the configuration files are stored in Public Documents, so permissions should not be an issue. – Regularly