add/remove program shadows

[IntelliServ]

We have a system that allows people to install two main versions at once. For instance, you can have version 1.0.3 and version 2.0.9 at the same time but not versions 1.0.3 and 1.0.5. To do this, we changed the product GUID of version 2. We also changed the name to IntelliServ v #, where # is the full version number.

The problem we are seeing is that when you run the installer for version 1.0.5 it tries to remove any previous versions on its own using the following code:

Code: Select all

   Install/Remove MSI Package $PRODUCTCODE$[REMOVE=ALL] (get result into variable REMOVEOLD)

This removes the files but leaves the entry for that version in the add/remove program list. So after going through a few versions I now have a list of six different IntelliServ v # entries in my add/remove programs list. I assume that the changing title is causing the problem because we never saw this before that change.

My question is: Is there something that we're not doing that is causing those entries to be left?

[neillans]

Ideally you should not be changing the product name between releases in the same major brance.

For example, you can safely use:

IntelliServe v1
IntelliServe v2

to identify the major verison, but do not use something like:

IntelliServe v1.01
IntelliServe v1.02
etc

MSI has a hard time cleaning this up - not sure why to be honest!

What you can do, however, is publish the full version information in the support dialog that is available via the Add / Remove Programs screen in windows.

Hope this helps.