Create a Minor Upgrade

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Summary

This article gives detailed steps on how to create a minor upgrade for an MSI based install.

Synopsis

This article gives detailed steps on how to create a minor upgrade for an MSI based install.

Discussion

To create a minor upgrade, follow these steps:

1. Create a backup copy of the InstallShield project.
2. Open the InstallShield project under the Installation Designer tab.
3. Create the minor upgrade item (creating this item will allow for Patching & Upgrading validation to be performed at build time)
   • Go to the Media/Upgrades view
   • Expand the Prepare Setup For Upgrade Scenarios
   • Right click on Upgrade Windows Installer Setup
   • Select Add Minor Upgrade Item from the pop-up menu
   • Give the new item a meaningful name
   • In the right pane under the Setup To Upgrade label, click on the ... button
   • Browse to the setup.exe of the install that this minor upgrade will be applied to.
4. Create the new Release
   • Go to the Media/Releases view.
   • In the middle pane, right click on Releases and select New Product Configuration from the pop-up menu.
   • Give the Product Configuration a meaningful name.
   • If required enter the new Product Version, increase the version number in one of the first three fields (Windows installer ignores the fourth field)
   • Verify the Generate Package Code property is set to yes. If it is set to no, regenerate the Package Code property.
   • Right click on the new Product Configuration and select New Release from the pop-up menu
   • Give the new release a meaningful name.
5. Build the minor upgrade release.

After the minor upgrade has been tested, the Media/Patch Design view can be used to create a patch package for the minor upgrade.

Additional Information

If you intend to distribute your installation without using Setup.exe, then there is a manual process your end users must follow to start the installation. For this reason, you should consider using Setup.exe, although you can achieve similar results without it.

The Installer properties REINSTALL and REINSTALLMODE must be set from the command line to start an installation in upgrade mode. In all but the most advanced scenarios, the property REINSTALLMODE should be set to vomus and the property REINSTALL should be set to ALL. A typical command line can look like the following: msiexec.exe /i <Setup Path>\MySetup.msi REINSTALLMODE=vomus REINSTALL=ALL

A critical point to note is that you do not want to set these properties on the command line unless a previous version of your installation already exists on the target machine. If you do, the installation appears to run in minor upgrade mode, and your product files may not get installed. Be sure that your end users will be able to discern when the command line should be used and when it should not.

For more information on Minor Upgrades, please refer to the following InstallShield Help Library articles:

Minor Upgrades

Creating Minor Upgrades

Upgrades View