villek
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2018 12:36 pm

Additional setup package

Tue Jun 05, 2018 7:31 am

We would need to distribute additional files in parallel to our main application. These additional files are updated much more frequently and they take very little space compared to the main application, and hence we'd like to provide them to our users as a smaller installer files that they can download if they need those files.

Based on the documentation I think we have two options: use patches to distribute the installer, or create a separate installer that checks that the main application is installed.

The patch way feels very difficult for our use case, as we like to keep the parallel files in a synchronized folder (they update so much that manually managing them is almost out of question). Also the parallel installation doesn't really care what version of main application is installed, so we might hit some version troubles if we take the patch route.

For the other option we'd like to know what would be the best way to check that the main application is installed. I couldn't find any way to do that from the prerequisite many. And also if there are any other caveats we should be aware of.

Eusebiu
Posts: 4931
Joined: Wed Nov 14, 2012 2:04 pm

Re: Additional setup package

Thu Jun 07, 2018 12:44 pm

Hi and welcome to Advanced Installer forums.

Indeed, creating a separate installer to update your files is the easiest solution for you. Using the patch feature may not be possible because a patch can only be applied on a predefined version of the main application and it does not work with synchronized folders.

In order to create a separate package for your scenario, you can follow the steps described in the "Patch to replace 2 files" thread.

To see if the main application is already installed, you can go in the "Search" page and add a "Product Version (identify by Upgrade Code)" predefined search.

Let me know if this helped, otherwise give me more details about your scenario.

Best regards,
Eusebiu
Eusebiu Aria - Advanced Installer Team
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