Creating patching outside of InstallAware.

[ken rentz]

We have a patch that among other things, needs to install about 200 new datafiles. The fact that we are supposed to install new files manually, and the fact that we can not patch any of our existing users due to incompatibilities between 6.0 and 6.1 versions of InstallAware has me asking the following question.
Can we update files using a program outside of the InstallAware/MSI realm? It would appear that patching does not modify any cached web blocks or any other information that would cause problems. Still, since it would appear that any difficulties I have encountered do not appear until a later date after we have shipped to customers, I thought I'd ask.

[CandiceJones]

Just to clarify: the "incompatibility" mentioned here is only regarding the patching of installers created with versions of IA earlier than 6.1x using patches created using versions 6.1x of IA and later.

Everything else is fully compatible, such as opening projects created in an older version with newer versions of the IDE.