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phil_d_b
Level 4

how does my installer know it should upgrade existing install?

Hi all

I have been tasked with learning Installshield to take over for someone who has left the company. I have never used Installshield or any installer software before, and the person who left can not provide any help.

I have been working through the tutorial, reading the Help Library etc but I have one question that I can't figure out.

We create Basic MSI projects, and Quickpatches. I have the .exe file for an installer project that was created in Installshield 2008 and I can run it and install the program. This version of our program that is installed is 2.6. I DON'T have the Installshield 2008 projects for v2.6.

I also have the full install shield 2011 projects for newer versions of our product: v2.7.5 and v2.7.7. v2.7.5 is a full Basic MSI project, and 2.7.7 is a quick patch.

Here is where I am getting confused.

I run the 2.6 installer and 2.6 is successfully installed.
I run the 2.7.5 installer and 2.6 is now upgraded to v2.7.5.

My questions is: how does the 2.7.5 installer KNOW that it should UPGRADE the existing 2.6 product instead of installing a new copy? I assume this has something to do with the Product Code or Upgrade Code Or Package Code but I dont know which one. If I search the machine (files and regedit) with 2.6 installed and look for the GUIDs specified in my 2.7.5 project settings, I do NOT find a match. I would have expected one of the GUIDs specified in the 2.7.5 project settings to appear SOMEWHERE on a machine that has a previous version installed, and that would tell the installer to perform an upgrade instead of a new install.

Any help is appreciated.
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Barbara
Level 7

The both versions 2.6 and 2.7.5 share the same upgrade code. If you look into the upgrade table of the version 2.7.5 you can see how the program detects older versions and what it does with them.

Barbara
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phil_d_b
Level 4

Thanks for the reply Barbara.

I have figured out that this is the right way to do things, and I will be doing it this way going forward. Unfortunately, the previous installers for our project (built by an ex-employee) all used different upgrade codes. He just let the system change them each time he started a new full installer, and there is now a lot of different codes out there. Turns out he was just installing over top (based on file location) and then removing the old registry keys to "clean up" the add-remove-programs list.

*SIGH*

So now I am tasked with creating a full installer that will:
1) upgrade from any one these different versions with different upgrade codes
2) unify the upgrade code so that it can be done THE RIGHT WAY going forward
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Barbara
Level 7

This is quite a time consuming job to do. How will you get to know all the upgrade codes he used, in order to upgrade all this setups out to your new one? I hope you will have installation media of all the versions out, into which you can have a look to check the guids.

Barbara
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