Helo there, I'm a newby to creating installers, so maybe the solution is verry simple. I did a search in the forums as well, but couldn't find the answer.
I've created an installer (Instalshiel 2008; Basic MSI) with some shortcuts in the startmenu (under a newly created folder) and on the desktop. Installing works fine, the problem I face is when I unistall the program. Everything is removed, however the shortcut are left behind.
We heave several versions of the product, that can coexist on the computer. We just changed the ProductCode to achieve this. They are installed in the same folder under program files but in there own sub folder. The shorcuts in under 'programs' are all in the same subfolder. [ProgramFiles] [subfolder version 1] [subfolder version 2]
[Start/Programs] [subfolder] [shortcut to version 1] [shortcut to version 2]
The 'funny' thing is that if there is no other version installed of the product the sortcuts are removed correctly. If there is one other version installed the shortcuts aren't removed.
What we want is that the shortcuts are always removed after in uninstall.
If some one could help with this problem it would be great.:)
[Edit] I've changed the 'Advertised' setting of the shortcuts to 'Yes'. And now it works. Don't know why. Can some one explain this?
It may have something to do with the component code (GUID) associated with the shortcuts' respective components. If the project has been updated for the different versions, the component codes may be the same. If you have on component code registered more than once, there may be some reference counting going on in the background preventing the shortcuts from being uninstalled until the reference reaches 0.
Try changing the component codes on the new version, and that may help. Also, see the Help topic on concurrent installations. There may be additional hints there.
Thanks for the hints I will have a look at them. It could be very true that the componets in the different versions have the same GUID. But why does it help if I set the shortcuts to Advertized?
Do you use seperate components for your shortcuts?
The behavior of advertised features is to only instal the shortcut, and keep it's dependencies cached in the install package to be installed on first use. (Read more about it in the help topic "Advertising Features")
