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I have programmed an application that I deploy to our users using SCCM. I do updates on the application currently about 5 times a month. To release the new version I create a copy of the old application and then just change the name and the ".msi" (including product guid) that it is referencing. In the new application I make sure that it supercedes the old application and does a complete uninstall. Then I retire the old application and delete the deployments. I would like to totally delete the old applications as well because they start to make the application list very long. However, I am afraid that if I delete the old applications then they will not be uninstalled from users machines when they get the new application.

What is the best practice for this supercedence/retire/delete process of upgrading applications?

skeletank
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It really depends on the applications. Supercedence is only really used when the {GUID} changes. This is normally caused by a major version change (version 3 to version 4). A well maintained software title will only update the version number when doing minor updates (v3.0 to v3.1). You will also find that many msi based software titles will install on top of your old version without issue.

Now to your question, SCCM has a pre-built report called "Count inventoried products and versions for a specific product". This will report a count of all inventoried versions of a software. You can then use the "Computers with a specific product name and version" to get a list of computers that have old versions.

From what I have been able to find for best practices, you want to keep all application packages that are currently in use. Once the software is no longer in your environment, you can retire the package and delete it once you know not having it isn't causing problems.

You can also make a folder in your application management section to store old application packages. SCCM uses unique IDs for everything and doesn't really care how you organize your objects.

Doltknuckle
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