NEEDSUPGRADE not being set to true

[Chris Miller]

I'm trying to see if I can create an InstallAware 6.6 setup that can replicate the functionality that I currently have in my Wise For Windows Installer setup. I want to be able to silently uninstall any previous version with the current installer. I have the IA Product Code set to the GUID as the WFWI Upgrade Code, so the IA installer should recognize if an older version is installed.

When I run the IS setup of my app after the WFWI versuion of the, it does not set NEEDSUPGRADE to true. It does replace the WFWI version under Add/Remove programs so some part of it is working. At what point in the IA script is NEEDSUPGRADE evaluated? I'm checking it in the region that was labeled "Install Application Pre-Requisites".

[CandiceJones]

NEEDSUPGRADE is evaluated before the first line of your script starts executing, but in your case it will never be set to true because the old version is not an InstallAware setup.

You can still manually remove the old version using the "Is MSI Setup Installed" and "(Un)Install MSI Setup" commands.

[Tinus]

Chris,

I'm not sure if Wise behaves the same as InstallShield (never used Wise), but you may have a look here:

http://forums.installaware.com/viewtopic.php?t=1237

[Chris Miller]

Thanks for the information, I'll try your suggestions. I have another question about upgrades. How does IA handle the situation where someone tries to install an older version of the setup over a newer one? I'm able to prevent that now with Wise because I have to explicity list which version numbers can be upgraded. Since IA does not reference the version numbers, just the product and revision codes, it looks like you could install an older version of an application over a newer one.

[CandiceJones]

You will see that this is not the case with a simple test of a basic setup project. The old version of your setup will be uninstalled automatically before the new version is applied. While your old version uninstallation is treated as a pre-requisite in the default scripts, you can customize this behavior any way you like and treat it as part of your main installation, if you want to conceal the fact from the end-user.

[Chris Miller]

I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing here. Let's say I create a setup for version 1.2.3 for an application. 6 months later, I create a setup for version 1.3.0 of the same application, based from the original setup project. They have the same product code, but different revision codes. If you install 1.3.0 over an existing 1.2.3, the NEEDSUPGRADE variable will be set and you can silently uninstall 1.2.3.

What happens if you have 1.3.0 installed and the user runs the 1.2.3 installer? From what I've been reeding in the help file and in this forum, the installer will see the product code from the already installed 1.3.0 and see a different revision code. Will NEEDSUPGRADE still be set to true or are you also checking the product version? I have not tested it, but it sounds like running the 1.2.3 setup after the 1.3.0 setup would uninstall 1.3.0 before installing 1.2.3.

[CandiceJones]

Oh, I totally misunderstood your question. Yes, NEEDSUPGRADE will be TRUE again, as it doesn't know about version numbers. You can use MSIcode to read your application's version and display an appropriate error if you do not wish to allow downgrades in this manner.