Rollback of an Installation

[ppdata]

I'm new at this program, so I'm sorry if this has already been covered. I can't seem to find it on the forum.
I've been able to successfully install and uninstall my application without issue. I have now created additional installs for updates to the program. (FYI, my program has many executables and dlls) but when I uninstall them, it deletes all the files.
How can I make the second install backup the files it replaces so when I rollback, it goes back to the previous, without running a repair from the previous install?
Thanks for any input.

[gigi]

Hi,

I have now created additional installs for updates to the program. (FYI, my program has many executables and dlls) but when I uninstall them, it deletes all the files.

Please give me more details about this, what is the organization of your application? What exactly do those updates and how do you create them?

Regards,
Gigi
_________________
Gheorghe Rada
Advanced Installer Team
http://www.advancedinstaller.com

[ppdata]

Hi,

Please give me more details about this, what is the organization of your application? What exactly do those updates and how do you create them?

Regards,
Gigi
_________________
Gheorghe Rada
Advanced Installer Team
http://www.advancedinstaller.com

Thanks for your reply.

Our clients already have our application loaded using an Installshield project. I am now using Advanced installer for updates to the program. I plan to use AI to roll out updates of our software from this point forward. The install project only contains executables used by our software, and ocx and dlls required for our software. All these files will already exist from the installshield project.

I have created a professional project type. It is a project that simply copies the new executables and dll's to the install directory for the program which already exists. The files are stored in the project in a CAB file. It does write specific entries to the registry when auto-registering an ocx or dll, but does not write any other properties (such as icons on the desktop or start menu). I have not modified settings from the project creation, so it should be pretty bone stock.

It is a very basic project I am using for GPO rollout, but when I uninstall the MSI, it deletes all the files originally installed by the MSI. This leaves the program useless.

Basically, I would like to make my updates work the same as any update from any third party vendor. If I decide that the update causes more issues than it's worth, I would like to uninstall it and roll back to a previous version of the code.

Is this possible? Is there a way to tell the AI project to backup the previous files and restore them if the MSI is un-installed?

Thanks.

Bill.

[gigi]

Hi,

You can create in the updates packages two custom actions one to backup the original files and other to restore them on uninstall. We have a tutorial on this theme in the online documentation:
http://www.advancedinstaller.com/user-g ... le-ca.html

But I don't think that this is a good approach. Think what happens if the user have installed update1 and update2. If it's uninstall update1 then this update restore the original files and update2 is steal installed.

Regards,
Gigi
_________________
Gheorghe Rada
Advanced Installer Team
http://www.advancedinstaller.com

[ppdata]

Hi,

You can create in the updates packages two custom actions one to backup the original files and other to restore them on uninstall. We have a tutorial on this theme in the online documentation:
http://www.advancedinstaller.com/user-g ... le-ca.html

But I don't think that this is a good approach. Think what happens if the user have installed update1 and update2. If it's uninstall update1 then this update restore the original files and update2 is steal installed.

Regards,
Gigi

Thanks for the information. I will look it up.

Do you have a suggestion for a better approach? I've tried making patch packages, but they don't seem to be working. While possible, it is unlikely that the updates would be uninstalled in a non-chronological order. Is there a better way to do this?

Thanks.

Bill.

[gigi]

Hi,

I suggest you to create the package in AI with all the files from the package created with IS (plus the new files). Also respect the instructions from this link:
http://www.advancedinstaller.com/forums ... php?t=1136

After this you can create patches also.

Regards,
Gigi
__________________
Gheorghe Rada
Advanced Installer Team
http://www.advancedinstaller.com