Making a patch

Bar_BQ · Post by **Bar_BQ** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 5:18 am

Hi,

There is one thing that isn't clear for me about patching. I want to add some new files to the patch, and that's ok. But what about all the rest files included in first setup? Should I leave that list or include only the new files and remove all the old files?

Thanks,
BarBQ

CandiceJones · Post by **CandiceJones** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 7:57 am

You don't create a new project for patches, unlike other tools. This saves you tremendous amounts of time and effort. You just rebuild your latest setup (which has all the latest files) as a patch, referencing against older, built versions of your setup that you want to be able to patch.

So your question is really a misunderstanding...

Be sure to read:
http://www.installaware.com/installaware_patching.pdf

Bar_BQ · Post by **Bar_BQ** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:14 am

thank you for reply Candice,

however the documentary in pdf is trvial, at least. I read it, and I understand it, but neighter the document nor help file doesn't touch some important things. For example what happens when after installing a patch, user runs maintenance dialog and choses "repair" option. What I see after test, the result isn't too optimistic: application gets back to the first version (that's maybe fine) but there aren't any updates available.
What can I do in this case?

Furhtermore, I had had a situation when update dialog didn't show up at all. That happened after pretty lots of installing and uninstalling operations of my application on virtual machine. Are there any clues what NOT to do to avoid any major problems?

Best regards,
BarBQ

CandiceJones · Post by **CandiceJones** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 2:03 pm

I think you're confusing web updates with patches. The two are not related. You can serve anything in a web update. For instance, you can serve a full installer, or a custom EXE file, or a TXT file.

Once an update is applied, it is applied - the web update client does not attempt to re-apply it. If you are concerned that this might break things when the user runs a repair after a patch installation, you can customize the web update and/or patch MSIcode to work around that.

Since InstallAware gives you full access to the source codes of everything, you have the power to do as you please. I'll also recommend you read the web updates whitepaper here:

http://www.installaware.com/installawar ... pdates.pdf