I have a slight problem that I need help to solve in Installshield 2008. I have two very similar products that unfortunately has different product codes. I want the products to merge in two one shared product code. How do I do this?
My products are already out to customers so this has to be made using only updates or patches. When I run this update I want the old version of the program to be removed and the new to be installed.
If I understand your issue, you should be able to create a project with a new product code that contains both former products. In it, create two upgrade table entries for major upgrades, one for each former upgrade code.
The new project will uninstall either (or both) of the old products it finds, then will install the new, combined product.
Altough; If doing this change I can imagine a new problem. My two products use two different version numbers. One has the ending 1077.x and the other one 1177.x where x is an increasing number for every new version. When I test building like this it seems like InstallShield always considers the 1077.x version to be older than the 1177.x version.
Example: When 1177.6 is installed and I want to install 1077.10 which is a newer version. This won't work because the installation tells me that you have a more recent version already installed.
Can I somehow go round this? Is it possible to change how the numbers count so my last number also is the most important one? Any other ways?
If you are going to combine the two products into one install, the install will have to have a single version number.
In the upgrade table, you can tell it to update product A up to and including, for example, 1077.3, and update product B up to and including 1177.3.
But the new project will have to have a single version that you will update going forward. For example, you might version the first release of the new install as version 1277.0. When you upgrade it, you'll have three upgrade entries: Product A - up to 1077.3 Product B - up to 1177.3 Product C - up to 1277.0
I doesn't matter, really, where you start the versioning for the new product because it will have different product and upgrade codes than either of the pre-exisiting products.
