Upgrades View

InstallShield 2013

Project: The Upgrades view is available in the following project types:

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Basic MSI

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InstallScript MSI

The Upgrades view provides a visual, integrated method for adding and authoring settings within the Upgrade table of an .msi database.

To add an upgrade item, right-click the Upgrade Windows Installer Setup node. Other available options are described below.

Upgrades View Options

Option

Description

Automatic Upgrade Item

Note: This is the preferred method for configuring upgrade settings. This option takes into account any potential future changes in the product code and handles both major and minor upgrades. If you do not know the difference between upgrade types and/or do not care, then choose this upgrade option.

When you add an automatic upgrade item, the build engine determines which settings need to be populated into your installation to perform a successful upgrade of your previous installation. This option does not require any additional authoring of advanced settings on your part. For more information, see Configuring InstallShield to Automatically Determine the Upgrade Type.

Minor Upgrade Item

Small updates and minor upgrades are functionally identical except the product version changes for a minor upgrade, but not a small update. A minor upgrade installs over an existing application while a major upgrade effectively uninstalls the existing installation of a product, and then installs the newer product version.

The functionality required to install a minor upgrade is in the Setup.exe installation launcher, which you must include in your release in order for a minor upgrade to work properly. The installation specified at build time will also be used to perform upgrade validation. The build will also verify that the referenced installation can indeed be updated using a minor upgrade. Note that the build will warn you if you do not include Setup.exe when you build your release. For more information, see Creating Minor Upgrades.

Major Upgrade Item

A major upgrade will effectively uninstall the existing installation of a product, and then install the latest product version. A major upgrade is appropriate for substantial installation architecture changes that may or may not change the major version number of the product (such as upgrading version 1.1.0 to version 2.0.0). A major upgrade is required if any of the following are true:

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The upgraded project contains new components in existing features. (This restriction does not apply to Windows Installer version 2.0 or later.)

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An existing component’s Component Code property has changed, or a component has been removed from the product tree.

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An existing feature has been moved in the product tree, or deleted from the product tree.

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The name of the .msi file has changed.

For more information, see Creating Major Upgrades.

Validate All Items

This option will allow you to perform validation on the latest release or browse for a particular package to validate against a different release. For more information, see Validating Upgrades, Patches, and QuickPatch Packages.

Note: You can individually validate each upgrade item separately when you right-click on an upgrade item, and choose Validate Item from the context menu.

Tip: Whenever you make changes in the Upgrades view, remember to rebuild your package before performing validation.

Upgrades View

InstallShield Help Library

June 2013