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I've seen several articles online where people show how to create windows setup projects, and then subsequently use the same setup project to deploy updates as in: Updates to setup projects. When performing this sort of install though, the previous version is always uninstalled first before the new version is installed. I'm curious if anyone has found a way to create versioned folders to maintain the previous versions that the user has already installed?

Example:

  • On first run of the setup.msi, it creates the default directory: [ProgramFilesFolder][Manufacturer][ProductName][ProductVersion] -> C:\Program Files\Manufacturer\Product\1.0.0.
  • On each next update, it creates new directories as in: C:\Program Files\Manufacturer\Product\1.0.2

There are some cases based on certain configurations where for performing certain functions, we would want to use an older version, rather than the latest version. I know this may sound weird, so I'm not going to get into the reason for why. Just curious if anyone thinks this is doable through regular setup projects.

mservidio
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  • Very nice question sir, actually I searching something like the same for which you have asked, so can you help me on this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31907758/send-update-using-setup-project-vs2010 – Amogh Aug 09 '15 at 19:05

1 Answers1

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This is called side by side installation and it's not supported by Visual Studio setup project. Basically, you need to modify the upgrade rules to allow two different versions to be installed on the same machine.

However, each version functions independently of other versions. So version 2.0 shouldn't use files from the version 1.0 folder.

If you want to preserve existing files during an upgrade, you can try this approach: https://web.archive.org/web/20130513032659/http://setupanddeployment.com/installer-concepts/preserve-data-install/

Cosmin
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  • @mmx, link http://setupanddeployment.com/installer-concepts/preserve-data-install/ is not working now, and I am looking for solution for my question http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31907758/send-update-using-setup-project-vs2010. Can you suggest something? – Amogh Aug 09 '15 at 19:14
  • The website no longer exists. But you can use archive.org to see a snapshot. I updated the link. – Cosmin Aug 10 '15 at 14:03