I have created a Setup and deployment project using the Visual studio and install the setup.
After i install the setup it copies a few files(XML) which on using of the application are configured programmatically .
Now , If the user is reinstalling this setup again i need to ask the user whether these configured files need to be overwritten or be retained ??
Any idea as to how this can be accomplished ?
Thanks & Regards,
Fran
Look into file versioning rules for Windows Installer.
In short, assuming that these XML files you refer to are unversioned text files, MSI will compare the Created and Modified dates and will not replace the updated XML files which you say are updated programmatically (post-install-time).
I would suggest several other variables you need to consider to make sure things are working as you expect: major vs. minor upgrade, and the REINSTALLMODE property.
I find that the best way to approach this kind of scenario is to implement the "preserve changes" logic in your application as opposed to via the setup. This avoids complicating your setup and yields greater control of the config process since all logic is embedded in your main EXE file. This means you can step through the process and debug it the normal "development way".
To achieve this you can install your "base config" files to a read-only location such as
%ProgramFiles%\MyCompany\MyApp\MyConfig*.*
Then your application can detect on launch whether existing config files exist in the user profile (or in a writable shared location), and ask the user whether the new config files should overwrite the existing config or not. You can also easily implement backup functionality for the old config.
In order to ask the question only once per user after deployment, the normal apporach is to flag HKLM with the latest installed version of the application and then write a corresponding flag in HKCU when the copy operation has completed or the user dismissed it:
HKLM\Software\MyCompany\MyApp\Version = 2.0.0
HKCU\Software\MyCompany\MyApp\Version = 1.0.0
In the above scenario version 2.0.0 of the application has been installed, but the per user config copy has not run for the user in question yet. Once it has run the HKCU version will be set to 2.0.0 and the operation is not run again until HKLM is incremented.
Related
We made some changes to the installation and updating process of our Windows app recently, and some users are now complaining that Windows sometimes automatically deletes the main application .exe file.
It usually occurs after users update app using built-in web update feature. The feature is implemented using .msi built in Advanced Installer tool.
We are struggling to figure out what is causing this, and haven't found a way to consistently reproduce the issue (though we've seen it happen as well).
Here's what changed with our installation and web updating process:
The main installer for our application is now a standard .msi, which becomes a part of the Windows installation system and is natively manageable by Group Policy and other system features, such as rollback or versions. In previous versions that did not have this problem, our installer was a .exe built with the SetupBuilder tool.
We introduced the redesigned web updater feature inside the app (to update to new versions within the app). It uses the same .msi as the main deliverable as for installation. .msi is downloaded from our server in a form of .exe which is then extracts MSI and starts it. MSI then updates file in our installation. These .exe and .msi is built with Advanced Installer tool which provides such a web update feature to developers. In previous versions that did not have this problem, our web update feature was developed with SetupBuilder tool which provided a custom web update files - .exe web updater that downloads a number of web update files containing patch to our app.
The goal of a transition to the standard .msi installer was to make it easy for our clients to deploy the app in organizations - say, mass deploy using group policies and other similar tools.
Has anyone else experienced a problem like this? Any ideas on how to troubleshoot and try to reproduce?
Theory: Before doing anything else: The first thing I would ask the people who report the problem is if they have re-packaged your older, legacy (non-MSI) setup to be their own MSI file? This can cause a well-known upgrade problem along the lines of what you explain (file missing). Please check first. Tell them to uninstall the existing version and then install the new one - that is the simplest way. Not always enough (some obscure problems possible).
Mismatched component GUIDs could cause missing files after upgrade, as could file version downgrade scenarios and various other technicalities. You could try to install to a new default location on disk to avoid these problems. The reason this can work is very technical and hard to explain tersely. Essentially you de-couple yourself from "the sins of the past". It is generally enough to change the name of the file in question: for example MyApp.exe to MyAppNew.exe or maybe add the major version: MyApp5.exe, but maybe try the folder change first ProgramFiles\MyCompany\MyApp => ProgramFiles\MyCompany\MyApp5.
How do you configure your upgrade? View "Upgrades", what is selected: "Uninstall old version first and then install new version" or "Install new version first and then uninstall old version".
Blog Entry:: Why Windows Installer removes files during a major upgrade if they go backwards in version numbers (might be of help).
Deployment Debugging: For open ended debugging of MSI and deployment problems in general one obviously needs to gather intel and that means logging and system inspection.
Logging: First try to get a proper log file for the systems where this problem occurs. In Advanced Installer you can tick the "Enable verbose logging" in the Install Parameters view to enable verbose logging for all package installations. This adds the MsiLogging property to the compiled MSI and every installation of the MSI will cause a MSI log file with a random name to be created in the TMP folder. View the folder, sort by date and the file should be at the top. Suggest you do this and then tell the users to send you the log files when relevant. Maybe you have this setting enabled already?
Further Logging: There are many ways to enable logging, and you can find a description here: Enable installation logs for MSI installer without any command line arguments. The MsiLogging property is just one possibility.
To log a single MSI setup: http://www.installsite.org/pages/en/msifaq/a/1022.htm.
To enable global logging for all MSI operations on the machine: Please see this FAQ-entry from installsite.org, section "Globally for all setups on a machine" - for the exact procedure.
How to interpret an MSI Log File.
I need some help regarding Install4J and the auto online update function.
We have a JRE bundled Install4J installer which works fine. We use the auto online update functionality which works fine, too. All this functionality in integrated to a continuous integration process in TeamCity.
Unfortunately the update installation setup file has a size of around 100MB which is inconvenient to download if we only want to apply a patch or a minor update.
As far as I have understood from other similar questions and the Install4J documentation the right way to deal with that is using a second project file with another application ID and setting up an Add-On-Installer which only contains relevant files and points to the full installer application ID.
To enable the auto online update functionality I have to upload the update.xml file from the Add-On installer, am I right?
By the way, does the Add-on online auto update procedure automatically detect the locally installed version correctly?
But in that case we have to adapt the add-on installer each and every time we are deploying a new patch or minor feature which is difficult to implement in the CI process.
Is there a way to configure an Install4J installer so that it automatically gets the information online which elements have to be updated so that the download size is as small as possible and we could just use one default add-on installer which contains all sources beside the JRE bundle?
Something like an online incremental update procedure which is managed internally by Install4J?
Thank you.
You should never use the add-on installer for updating, because it cannot change the version number.
In order to get smaller update installers, you create a second project where the distribution tree only contains the changed files - or at least does not contain some large files that did not change. To do that, you simply copy the original installer and delete the files in the distribution tree that you do not need to update.
Then you build two sets of installers, those for a new installation and those for the update.
We ship a config file as a part of our installation that we create via install4j. Suppose the user is doing an upgrade installation when we ship a new version of the product. Is there any way to determine if the user has manually modified the file after last installation ??
We need to detect if the user has modified this file, and then merge the changes that the user has done with the new changes that we are introducing by the update.
Any pointers / ideas would be greatly appreciated.
TIA
As of 5.1.11, install4j does not support this kind of content-based modification detection. Modification detection only takes file modification times into account.
Windows installer compares a file's create and modify dates. If they are different the file has changed.
I believe you can solve this in a better way by writing the config file using the main application executable using "internal defaults" in your application instead of a base config file delivered via your setup. You can then re-apply all internal defaults to the existing file, add any new updates whilst keeping user changes where possible (sometimes you want to override what has been changed?).
The more intelligent an application is in its configuration and maintenance of settings, the less deployment problems you will see.
I need to create a release / install package. There is a drop down box in VS that lets me create a release version for the project. So I hit the publish button and choose the CD option. Sure enough it publishes the a setup I need. I installed the application everything goes fine though I have no idea where on the target machine where the application ended up??? Trouble is my application has signed XML file that stores the public keys my application uses to enable features depending on what a customer is licensed to do. I would like the key file to be part of the package that is installed so I don't have to send it seperately. I have to send the license file but I was hoping to avoid confusion by only requiring the user to only have copy the license file to the local directory. Which brings up another question were is application installed I did a search and found nothing with my application name???? But thereis an icon onthe star menu and the applicaton seems to run just file
You probably deployed your application as a "ClickOnce" Application. It installs the program to an obfuscated folder in your users folder. On Windows 7 it winds up in something like "c:\users\username\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0\somefoldername\somefoldername". If you need more control of the installation, the free InstallSheild LE that comes free with VS2010 is not a bad choice. It will let you add additional files as well.
I am using windows installer to create setup project.
How I can remove/delete application files from AppData\Roaming folder when application uninstalled.
I tried added a special folder and set DefaultLocaltion to [AppDataFolder] but it didn't working.
Do I need to do anything else?
I'd need to understand what you are trying to do to give you specific advice. In general what you are trying to do would be OK removing files from CommonAppDataFolder but not AppDataFolder as trying to clanup user data from multiple user profiles is not a best practice. Additionally trying to cleanup Roaming Profile User data is outright impossible because the other users aren't logged on.
You'll want to read:
Managing Roaming User Data Deployment Guide
Assuming you are trying to do what I think you are, you'll need a cleanup script / exe that you leave behind on uninstall and a custom action to write to the registry during uninstall ( MSI can't do this natively ) to call that script/EXE. You'll want to leverage the Active Setup trick as described here:
Using Active Setup to Repair User Settings
The way it'll work is your uninstall leaves the EXE and registry entry behind so that when a user logs on it's roaming data gets pulled down from the server to local and Active Setup realizes it hasn't run the script yet. The script runs (once) and the data is deleted. When the user logs off the data is replicated / deleted on the server. Then they log on again it doesn't run again.
By default Windows Installer does not remove the files created by your application, after the installation. To do that you need to either write your own custom action, that will run upon uninstall, or depending on the tool used for authoring the MSI, you can use built-in options for cleaning the application locations, as some tools have this support.