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obrion
Level 3

Method to update features independently?

My Product Management team has asked me to create a way to independently update various Features of our product. Their idea is that they want to be able to deliver "plug-in components" after the initial product installation, and to be able to dynamically updated these "components" after the initial installation without installing a whole new product.

From perspective of the actual product, dropping in a new DLL or executable is easy enough, so that is really no problem. What I am trying to figure out, though, is the best method to use to deliver these updated files from an installer perspective.

I have previously packaged all the files for the features we wish to update into a merge modules so I could build a second installer which consumes the same merge module, thereby creating a standalone installation that could add the feature. However, I am not sure how I could then associate this feature installation to the original installation so the product and the add-on feature could all be installed together. I have also been considering how I might be able to use a patch to deliver the updates, but there are two features we want to update independantly and patches seem to be sequential.

Any advice on how to approach this? It seems there should be a way to do this as I think I have seen other products do this. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Robert O'Brion
AT&T Labs
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cbragg
Level 7

I know you said that you don't want new products but personally I would create small little MSIs for each of your plugins so an installation of a plugin doesn't require a reinstall of the main product, download size will be very small, you can update them independanly and you can have any differing combination of plugins.

You can set up the installations to be very simple for the user too by automatically system searching a reg key from the main product for the plugins folder instead of asking the user where to install

To make the user's life easier I would name the plugins after your main product so for instance my main product is called mymainproduct and each plugin is called something like mymainproduct - plugin1 so that they appear alongside each each in add/remove programs
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