18 Upgrade an Existing MSI Application

LANSA Deployment Tool

18. Upgrade an Existing MSI Application

An end user cannot downgrade the current application, for example Version 1.22.444 cannot be upgraded to Version 1.22.333.

Follow the same procedure that is used to install a new version on top of an existing application. That is, simply double click the MSI file or run msiexec.exe from a command-line.

An upgrade defaults all settings to the same as the previous install. It will display the Local Database Dialog to allow the Setup Database check box to be selected as appropriate, if the dialog has been enabled. All other user data entry dialogs are skipped. So for an upgrade only the following dialogs may be displayed:

  • Welcome Dialog
  • License Agreement Dialog
  • Local Database Dialog (optional)
  • Verification Dialog
  • Progress Dialog
  • Completion Dialog

Refer to section 17.1.6 Version Installation Dialogs for more information about the above dialogs.

The upgrade process involves uninstalling the previous version of the application before installing the new version. The new version must contain the complete application including any changes to the database. The new installation will save a copy of the partition folder from the old version and restore it before running the upgrade process on the database, which for tables that change involves unloading the data, applying the changes and then reloading the data.

A new version of an application cannot be installed 'side-by-side' with a previous version, therefore installing a new version will always result in the previous version being removed first, leaving one entry for the application in the control panel.

Note 1: As an upgrade uses the values from the previous install and does not allow them to be changed (except for the database parameters). If an invalid value was used it will still be invalid. To override this behaviour, use a command line prompt with msiexec.exe to run the install and pass the correct parameter. For example, if the Form name in the MSI was originally "MYFORM" but needs to be changed to "MYFORM2" then this is an example of the command line:

Msiexec.exe /i MYAPP_v1.0.2_en-us.msi FORM=MYFORM2

Note 2: If the error is discovered AFTER upgrading, you will need to uninstall and then re-install the application using the latest MSI file. Tables in the database will already have been updated so do not install the original MSI which may have different table definitions.