OK, after searching all over. Could someone kindly please help me. I built a setup.exe basic MSI for an app. Works perfectly. As I always test stupid user actions, I ran the setup again and IS offered to 'upgrade' my app. PLEASE - what am I missing?? How do I stop this crazy 'upgrade' dialog.
I know in the past I wrote a vbs custom action to check if the app was installed already. But that was 2 years ago and surely there is a better way. I just spent a thousand dollars on upgrading IS 2009 Pro to 2010 & have loaded SP1.
The upgrade window appears as you must have built the setup again after installing it for the first time. Anytime you build the setup again, it changes the package code and hence is considered as a small update.
Uninstall the setup and then try running the setup twice and you should see the maintenance window during the execution of second time execution.
I poked around in the upgrade area and set a 'never prompt' on the minor upgrade option.
Also I am taking care not to mess up the product code for my application. Everything seems ok now. The second run gives the maintenance UI now. Which is as expected.
I am about to release a major upgrade to my app. I hope it can "just work". I need to replace the .exe and a .chm help file totally uninstalling existing app. So I'm wondering that when I do this will the 'setup.exe' (still a basic MSI with IS wrapper) also be the same 'setup.exe' for NEW customers?? Lucky its freeware and I don't need to do UAC bypass writes to HKLM. Though I have all that sorted out for my paid for apps... (they launch a little exe with require admin manifest to write to the real HKLM). Thanks for the reply.
