I'm sure this is something that has been covered before, but I'm not finding it on the board. Here's my problem.
I've been using Visual Studio's Installer Project (or a version of it) for almost 20 years. I've extended my needs through custom actions and hacking the msi tables directly with vbscripts integrated into the build process -- but the process is simply getting too time consuming and I was looking to simplify the process. For my project, I have 4 installers:
* 2 32-bit installers -- one for admin and one for non-admin users (different product codes)
* 2 64-bit installers -- one for admin and one for non-admin users (different product codes)
The product codes are different because I work at a large university and we run into programs that differentiate by bit and keep the same product code which causes all kinds of problems when trying to manage updates through SCCM.
What I'm not understanding is how to transition these installations from 4 builds to 2 (one 32/64 bit user install and one 32/64 bit admin install). I've been building a test installer. I use the same product code and upgrade code from one of my previous msi's. In the Visual Studio Installer Project, in order to remove a previous version -- you had to maintain the same product code, but change the update code each time the version number changes. When I try this same approach with AI, this doesn't give me the desired result (I get an error telling me a current version is installed and I need to remove it). In AI, it seems that I need to change the product code and maintain the Upgrade code -- and that is my problem. I have around 50,000 versions of this program floating around and when I push updates (weekly, so changing just the build number, i.e. 7.0.[x]) I'm going to need this transition to be completely transparent.
I'm realizing that I'm misunderstanding something in the process, and I'm wondering if someone can help me understand the differences between the two systems so I can start working out a way to make this transition because there is a lot of stuff in AI that really would make my workflows better.
Thank you,
--tr