Using Windows Installer Package-How to Automatically Uninstall previous version

[EternalMyrtle]

Hello,

I have created a split Access 2007 database that is currently used by a few people in a mid-size company who are running it in Runtime. Because small changes are always being made to the front end, I have found it is necessary to post new releases fairly frequently. Several of my users find it difficult or frustrating to have to copy the front end file to their hard drive, remove the old file and create the necessary desktop short cuts.

As a result, I recently downloaded the Access Developer Extensions so that I can make an installer package.

The installer package works great. It is super easy to use and is so much better and more professional than asking users to copy the file themselves to the correct location. The only problem is that I cannot for the life of me figure out how to UNINSTALL the old version when doing an upgrade. It always just installs the new version on top of the old one. I can get it to replace the file (if I name it the same thing and use the same GUID Upgrade code) but the program still appears in the Add/Remove programs in the control panel.

I have been Googling this for two days with no avail. So far, i have downloaded Windows SDK Configuration Tool so that could install Orca to edit the MSI file but I still cannot figure this out.

It can't be this difficult, can it? :banghead:

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[EternalMyrtle]

Although I didn't receive any replies about this, I figured I would follow up in case someone is interested in this topic.

I have been working hard on creating an installer to deploy the database that automatically uninstalls the previous version (so that there is only one instance of it in the Add/Remove programs list). After wasting a couple of days trying to get the windows installer to work the way I wanted it to work, I finally scrapped it and downloaded an installer program called Inno Setup: http://www.jrsoftware.org/isdl.php

Inno Setup creates a single exe file for running the install instead of a folder containing multiple files, which I prefer. It is also easy to script once one gets the hang of it.

I used the script posted on this website as a guideline: http://www.kallal.ca/RunTime/InstallExample.htm and added my own custom touches by following Inno's documentation (which, incidentally, is much more straightforward than anything I found through Microsoft's help files).

I have yet to do extensive testing but it looks like it will work out. A major plus is that after only a couple of hours fiddling with Inno Setup, I have the installer looking and functioning almost exactly as I want it. Compare that to the two + days I spent fiddling with Microsoft Installer and all of its associated files and programs getting nowhere :banghead:. Needless to say, I am pretty happy with Inno so far