My company is selling an educational software product that consists of one core program and multiple volumes based on grade level. The user is allowed to decide which volume to start on, since it would be foolish for a high school student to begin by reviewing kindergarten material. Each CD must be able to install the core program by itself and the volume data for that grade level. However if the core program was already installed by a previous CD the install shield still needs to install the volume data without showing an error about a previously existing version of the program.
I am new to using install shield and am baffled by the number of options presented to me. Can any one point me in the right direction? Thank you in advance.
One approach may be to factor your "core" program into an internal merge module. Then each "volume" can be a separate product (separate product code, etc.) including the volume-specific data files, and merge a copy of the "core" merge module. The core file will be installed with whatever volume is installed first, and Windows Installer's refcounting should handle keeping the core programs installed until all volumes have been removed.
