InstallShield 2012 Spring Express Edition User Guide

Chapter 17: Updating Applications
Upgrades Overview
In a major upgrade, the product changes are large enough to merit changes to both the product version
number and the product code, as well as the package code. An example is updating version 1.2 of a
product to 2.0. A major upgrade acts like a first-time installation if an earlier version is not present. If an
earlier version is present, a major upgrade typically uninstalls the earlier version and then installs the
new version.
How Major Upgrades Work
As the Windows Installer help implies, you must change the product code for the latest version of your
installation in order to perform a major upgrade.
Note: You can set the product code for your installation in the General Information view. It does not matter what the new
product code is, as long as it is unique.
Once you update the product code for your latest installation, you need to use the Upgrade Paths view to
specify information for any previous version or versions that you want to upgrade. You can do this in the
latest installation project for your product.
For more information about what is involved in creating an upgrade, see Creating Full-Installation
Upgrades.
Major Upgrades at Run Time
When an earlier version of the product is not available on the target machine and the end user runs a
major upgrade, the installation behaves as a first-time installation.
If an earlier version of the product does exist on the target machine and the end user runs a major
upgrade, they will encounter almost the exact same installation experience as if they were to install the
latest application on a clean target machine. The difference is that before installing its new resources, the
installation will first remove the old application version and its resources from the target machine. This
removal is reflected in the progress bar of the Setup Progress dialog, which gives end users the ability to
see the progress of the uninstallation. After the removal of the previous installation has completed, the
resources from the latest installation will then be installed onto the target machine.
This type of upgrade is a complete uninstallation and then reinstallation of all of the resources
associated with your application. Therefore, any data for your application that has been configured by
the end user may be completely deleted from the end user’s machine. If you need to retain some of the
end-user data, you will need to create a custom action that backs up this data, and then replaces it after
the installation of new data has completed.
Minor Upgrades
Edition: You can create a minor upgrade packaged as a full installation in InstallShield Premier Edition or InstallShield
Professional Edition. You can also create a minor upgrade packaged as a QuickPatch project in InstallShield Premier
Edition, InstallShield Professional Edition, or InstallShield Express Edition.
A minor upgrade is a change to the product database and files large enough to merit a change to the
ProductVersion property but not to the ProductCode property. In other words, both the package
code and the product version number are different than those in the earlier installation package, but the
product code of the minor upgrade does not change. An example is updating version 1.1 of a product to
320 ISE-1900-UG00 InstallShield 2012 Spring Express Edition User Guide