Can installer detect prior install and uninstall it?

[judyh]

Hi all,

We are using LabWindows CVI 2010.  One of the prior iterations of CVI's distribution kit would detect and existing install of one of our programs and prompt for an uninstall before it would install the new version.  This wasn't a big deal for us, but now it's changed.  Apparently the user must use the Windows Add/Remove panel to uninstall before installing a new version of our software.  Personally, I don't have a big problem with this either, but we have a customer that wants the uninstall prompt first so they don't have to use the Add/Remove panel.  Is there any option in the current Distribution Manager that allows us to include this?

Thanks,

Judy Harrigan

[Christopher_T. · Accepted solution]

Hi Judy,

From doing quite a few tests, that behavior does not exist anymore. Therefore there really isn't a way to have this behavior again. You could however have a specification file that could run a silent uninstall, and use a batch file to first call the setup with the spec file to uninstall the version if uninstalled then another execution of setup.exe to run the

install.

A similar setup of this is seen here:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/AA2371E815A418DD86257169005F2D99?OpenDocument

Hope this helps!

[judyh]

Thanks for your help Christopher!

Judy

[Mert_A.]

Distributions built with CVI use versioning rules to automatically uninstall lower versions of the same installation. The user won't see any sort of prompt to uninstall the older version; it will happen automatically. This is the case assuming two things:

1. Both the newer and older distributions were built from the same configuration settings (i.e. .cds file).
2. The newer distribution specifies a higher installer version than the old one.

You can double check your versioning settings by opening up the Edit Distribution dialog, and examining "Upgrade behavior" the General tab. Specifically, if you leave the "Auto-increment" checkbox checked, then you can ensure #2 above.

I should also point out that this versioning/upgrade behavior applies only to your program -- not the drivers and runtime support you might be including in the distribution. So if your older distribution packaged in DAQ, and your newer distribution does not, installing your newer distribution over the older one won't cause DAQ to be uninstalled.

If what I've described doesn't seem consistent with the behavior you're seeing, please let me know, as that would indicate a bug.

Mert A.

National Instruments