[WiX-users] Question: Migrating Existing Installer to Windows Installer
Hello, I’ve spent the last two days getting familiar with WiX, the windows installer, and going through the great tutorial on WiX (http://www.tramontana.co.hu/wix/). I especially liked the article posted a year ago (http://msdn.microsoft.com/smartclient/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnwingen/html/wixsetup.asp) that talks about doing the installer during the development cycle and not at the end of it. We are badly in need of doing this. I have a question however. How do we migrate from our current installer to the Windows Installer for existing customers? We just released version 5.0 of our product. Spending 6 weeks updating our installer (we have a custom C# installer). I can see our new customers instead using a new .msi for later versions (5.5, 6.0, etc). What do I do about our existing customers when they wish to upgrade? They’ve never installed originally with a Windows Installer. How do I get them on the same track? Thanks for any advice, Rick Glos - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys -- and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] Question: Migrating Existing Installer to Windows Installer
When we moved over to MSI we had to deal with existing InstallShield installs. I got round the problem by looking in the registry for the key InstallShield writes under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall using a RegistrySearch. I then used the set property as the condition for a custom error telling the user to uninstall the existing version. This might seem crude, but it does the job and each customer only has to do it once. Rob Rick Glos wrote: > Hello, > > I’ve spent the last two days getting familiar with WiX, the windows > installer, and going through the great tutorial on WiX > (http://www.tramontana.co.hu/wix/). I especially liked the article > posted a year ago > (http://msdn.microsoft.com/smartclient/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnwingen/html/wixsetup.asp) > > that talks about doing the installer during the development cycle and > not at the end of it. We are badly in need of doing this. > > I have a question however. How do we migrate from our current installer > to the Windows Installer for existing customers? > > We just released version 5.0 of our product. Spending 6 weeks updating > our installer (we have a custom C# installer). I can see our *new* > customers instead using a new .msi for later versions (5.5, 6.0, etc). > What do I do about our existing customers when they wish to upgrade? > They’ve never installed originally with a Windows Installer. How do I > get them on the same track? > > > > Thanks for any advice, > > Rick Glos > > > > > - > Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT > Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your > opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys -- and earn cash > http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV > > > > > ___ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys -- and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] Question: Migrating Existing Installer to Windows Installer
Rick Glos wrote: We just released version 5.0 of our product. Spending 6 weeks updating our installer (we have a custom C# installer). I can see our new customers instead using a new .msi for later versions (5.5, 6.0, etc). What do I do about our existing customers when they wish to upgrade? They’ve never installed originally with a Windows Installer. How do I get them on the same track? MSI has support for automatically upgrading other MSI installations to later versions. You won't be able to use that with your custom installer but you can fake it. For example, use RegistrySearch or FileSearch to locate old installations, then provide UI that prompts them to uninstall first. -- sig://boB http://bobs.org - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys -- and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users