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I just read the following in the wix tutorial.

For some strange reason, small updates and minor upgrades cannot be run simply by clicking on the .msi file—they give the error: "Another version of this product is already installed." We know, stupid... Anyway, you have to start it with the command:

msiexec /i SampleUpgrade2.msi REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=vomus

Don't ask me how this would fare with the average user... You'd better start it from an Autorun.inf file or devise an outer Setup.exe shell to launch it.

We want people to be able to download the most recent version of our app and install it, even if they have an older version already installed. How do you normally deal with this?

Daniel Neel
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JonDrnek
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    I'm curious why you are not simply using major upgrades? – Wim Coenen Mar 12 '09 at 21:50
  • Well, fixing a couple of bugs does not justify jumping from version 1.0.0 to version 2.0.0. – JonDrnek Mar 13 '09 at 14:42
  • what he means is, just force the system to use a major upgrade, even if the actual version number is smaller than that. – mmr Apr 24 '09 at 01:40
  • Yep: I'm currently trying major upgrades even for upgrading from yesterday's dev build to today's dev build, which have the same version number (ignoring the 4th version field - as MSI does). I'm new to WiX/MSI so not sure if I should wholeheartedly recommend that, but if the effects of such an upgrade (uninstalls old version completely) are acceptable to you... – bacar Feb 19 '10 at 19:34
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    Please link the tutorial http://www.tramontana.co.hu/wix/lesson4.php in your question. – Sridhar Ratnakumar Aug 25 '10 at 23:25

2 Answers2

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One word: bootstrapper. The WiX toolset has a simple bootstrapper right now (John Robbin's has a nice write up about setupbld.exe). In the future, Burn will do this and more.

Rob Mensching
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I'm surprised Rob didn't answer with the same answer as he did to my question, as it was basically the same question:

WiX-- always overwrite the previous version

Community
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mmr
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  • There are 2 valid answers. One is that it is only in very rare cases that a Minor Upgrade or Small update are actually justified. The second is that in those very rare cases the way to go about it is to use a bootstrapper or bundle application to properly invoke MSI. – Tamir Daniely Aug 08 '15 at 14:32