Does InstallAnywhere have any support for product upgrades?

[cpaine]

I have used installers that when run will detect if you already have an installed version of the product you are trying to install, and which will then offer various options based on the version numbers. For example, if the already installed version is older than the version the user is trying to install, it will offer the option of first uninstalling the older version. Or if the version already installed is the same or newer than the version the user is trying to install, it will inform the user and allow them to abort the install. Does InstallAnywhere have any support for building installers that do this sort of thing?

[pv7721]

Unfortunately, it's a very poor support, you'll pretty much have to rely on custom code for upgrade installs.

[TedMacomber]

You have to build your own upgrade strategy.

The thing I would highly recommend is to understand how the uninstaller works in relation to the installer.

You see the uninstaller knows what to do, based on recording things done during the install step.

With our products, our installer handles the upgrade. We record a version number in the registry, and then we get it, determine we are an upgrade and deal with the ramifications.

But, what I think we see is that if we do the following:
- install brand new
- upgrade
- upgrade again
- uninstall

The uninstaller actually appears to get invoked 3 times. One for each execution of the install.

Given this behavior, a reasonable design to consider when upgrading is to

a) recognize it is an upgrade.
b) preserve customizations
c) invoke the uninstaller silently
d) proceed as if a brand new install
e) restore customizations

Our installers are not really designed this way.

I have asked for a long time to get copy files actions and delete files actions in the pre-install step such that it would make upgrades easier, but these requests fell on deaf ears.

Good luck

[cpaine]

TedMacomber wrote:

Given this behavior, a reasonable design to consider when upgrading is to

a) recognize it is an upgrade.
b) preserve customizations
c) invoke the uninstaller silently
d) proceed as if a brand new install
e) restore customizations

Thanks for the information. I have found that by using the "Find Component in Registry" and "Execute Uninstaller" actions I can do the sort of things I want to, following a similar scheme to the one you suggest above. Out of interest, what do you mean by "preserve customizations"?

[qqqqqq]

As mentioned by TedMacomber, i am facing this problem

if we do the following:
- install brand new
- upgrade
- upgrade again
- uninstall

The uninstaller actually appears to get invoked 3 times. One for each execution of the install.

While upgrading, we can NOT go for the option suggested: While upgrading uninstall silently and then upgrade.. as we have lot many database operations and other things.

Is there any way to avoid the old installations uninstaller actions getting invoked? i just want the uninstall actions for latest upgrade to be invoked.

Thanks.

[qqqqqq]

any solution for this?