How to Keep Track of Revison Codes for Setup Upgrade

wileywilly · Post by **wileywilly** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:49 am

Hello,

I have an application for which I am building the setup using IA 7.
I have five (5) different companies/users using my application - the implication of this is I ship them the same version when I have a major release but each one may need some features to be added or maybe have issues based on their system that may require some special fixes on the application just for those specific users.

I can use the same Product Code for all the setup scripts but different Revision Codes for the Upgrade Setups.

My Question is : How can I keep track of the Revision Codes - is it automatic that the latest generated Revision Code on the latest setup will upgrade any previous installation done in IA(that is, installations bearing the same Product Code)
Am thinking USER 1 installed version is 2.1 while USER 2 and USER 3 are running version 2.2 - USER 4 and USER 5 (both very notorious) are running version 2.5
So the next major version I release will ship to all 5 users - as you can clearly see they all have different installation (different setups; different revision codes but same product code)

Will this latest setup that I should build (Same Product Code as the previous one but different Revision Code) be able to upgrade all these versions running on the different PCs?

I look forward to your answers and /or suggestions!

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 8:38 am

You don't need to manually track these codes at any time.

When you run any latest version of your setup on top of any of these older versions, as long as the revision codes are all different, and as long as the product codes are all the same, the new install will offer to remove the old versions before proceeding to install the latest new version.

ulrichard · Post by **ulrichard** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:41 am

Hi wileywilly,

in addition, did you read http://www.installaware.com/installawar ... pdates.pdf and have a look at the updates.ini files?

In your post you talk about product/revision codes and version numbers. These are two separate things.

Rgds
Richard

wileywilly · Post by **wileywilly** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:29 pm

Richard,

I had a look at the web updates pdf file

Yes, the Product Code and Revision Codes are two different things but for the update to be successful I need to maintain the same Product Code and change the Revision Code with every build.

I have no problem with this - my worry is about the fact that the update setup will uninstall the previous setup before installing the latest setup (update setup).
In cases where only specific files are being shipped - as oppossed to the whole application - i will still require the files already existing on the Users' PC to remain except for the few files which should merely be overwritten by the new ones contained in the new setup. If the setup uninstalls the previous installation then my updates will not work.
Is there a way to ensure the Update setup installs its files without uninstalling the previous setup?

I appreciate the point on using the Web Updates although as you may notice, this does not change the issue with the Updates as far as the actual running of the setup on the PC is concerned.

MichaelNesmith,

I appreciate the clarification on the use of Product Code and Revision Code.

You don't need to manually track these codes at any time.

When you run any latest version of your setup on top of any of these older versions, as long as the revision codes are all different, and as long as the product codes are all the same, the new install will offer to remove the old versions before proceeding to install the latest new version.

True, but is there a way to run the update setup without uninstalling the previous installation?

Again, any suggestions are appreciated.

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:25 pm

If you wish to preserve files, you should use patches - instead of full upgrades. Patches will preserve all files.

wileywilly · Post by **wileywilly** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:52 am

Hello,

I have been trying to build the web based setups so that I can use the patch feature for updating over the web. (so far this seems the better option)

However, my updates are not running as expected - having provided the url for the updates. ini file in the Properties page.
I tried to download the updates.ini file (just to test the url). I got this message from the FDM (download manager) I am using:

File not found on the server

When logged in to the site, I can view the file - am sorting out with my web hosting service provider about this, although is it possible to change the updates.ini file to a text file i.e. updates.txt?

Will the .txt file work just like the .ini file?

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 6:16 am

Of course, you can use any file extension you like. Just be sure to update the installer to check for the right extension.

Bar_BQ · Post by **Bar_BQ** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 11:10 am

wileywilly,

I had the same problem with updates.ini file.
Your web serwer may haven't declared a mime type for ini files and these are just incacessible. Ask your administrator to do that.

wileywilly · Post by **wileywilly** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 1:50 am

Hello,
I managed to get the web updates to work although I had to settle for a text file rather than the ini file which is created by default for the updates.

Anyway, I am interested in finding out about the mime types for ini files

Bar_BQ, I would appreciate it if you could shed some more light into this - you may provide links that I can check out too.

Thank you all for helping out - couldn't have done it alone