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I am trying to uninstall existing version of MSI automatically during the installation of newer MSI.

I referred N number of articles and blogs which refer to Upgrade Code, Product Code, the properties of Setup project (like RemovePreviousVersions, DetectNewerInstalledVersion, versions), versions of DLLs from AssemblyInfo file (AssemblyFileVersion) etc....

Using these informations, I have one solution with me to do the above task. But, in this case maintenance is a problem with this approach.

There is one more action that I have observed from Visual Studio which does the same task. Which exactly performs the activity that I require and for the same I have framed the question as follows. Please throw some light on this query...

"The 'Install' action by right clicking on setup project from VS 2010, uninstalls the older version of product (irrespective of the value of RemovePreviousVersions property) and then goes ahead with installation of latest version. The same doesn't happen when MSI is used to install (although RemovePreviousVersions property is set to TRUE). Just wanted to know what actions or commands triggered in the former installation procedure, so that the same can be applied somehow using the code"

Hope the question is clear and straight foward..Let me know for any inputs.. Thanks a million in advance

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  • The other option that I use for performing the above activity is as follows: 1) Set the RemovePreviousVersion and DetectNewerInstalledVersion properties to TRUE. 2) Keep the same Upgrade Code as that of installed MSI but change the Product Code along with the version for new MSI. 3) Also change the AssemblyFileVersion value of every project. These settings and changes will help in replacing all PE files. This activity actually doesn't uninstall and install the MSI but instead just updates all the PEs which are found with different version. Thus maintenece is a problem in this case Commented Sep 5, 2012 at 13:55

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The "Install" action uses Windows Installer API to manually uninstall the old version before launching the current installer. You don't need to replicate this because Windows Installer supports major upgrades. If the automatic upgrade doesn't work for you, there is a mistake somewhere.

Check both MSI packages using Orca to see if they have the same UpgradeCode. Also, ALLUSERS property should have the same value in both of them. Finally, try creating a verbose log and search for FindRelatedProduct and RemoveExistingProducts actions to see what happens with the old version.

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Hi Cosmin, Thank you for the quick response on this.. The conditions you specified above are okay in my case. I tried creating verbose log and I will share the part of log for keywords that you have mentioned.
For key word FindRelatedProduct following is part of log: MSI (s) (AC:3C) [16:19:25:862]: Doing action: FindRelatedProducts Action ended 16:19:25: AppSearch. Return value 1. Action start 16:19:25: FindRelatedProducts. MSI (s) (AC:3C) [16:19:25:862]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding PREVIOUSVERSIONSINSTALLED property. Its value is '{24CDE93B-713B-4636-9318-FCEB125E38D8}'. MSI (s) (AC:3C) [16:19:25:862]: Skipping action: ERRCA_CANCELNEWERVERSION (condition is false) MSI (s) (AC:3C) [16:19:25:862]: Doing action: VSDCA_VsdLaunchConditions Action ended 16:19:25:FindRelatedProducts.Return value 1.
For keyword RemoveExistingProducts I observed two entries: one with return value 1 and other with 0. Its as follows:_MSI (s) (AC:C4) [16:19:29:390]: Doing action: InstallFinalize Action ended 16:19:29: RemoveExistingProducts. Return value 0. MSI (s) (AC:C4) [16:19:29:390]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Deleting UpdateStarted property. Its current value is '1'. Other part is Property(N): INSTALLLEVEL = 1 MSI (s) (AC:3C) [16:19:29:437]: Note: 1: 2262 2: Error 3: -2147287038 MSI (s) (AC:3C) [16:19:29:437]: Doing action: InstallFinalize Action ended 16:19:29: RemoveExistingProducts. Return value 1.
Please let me know if you can infer any thing out of it and help me out. I am confused with this log. Thank you in advance :)

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