[wpkg-users] wpkg - how to upgrade between different products like 'firefox 3' to 'firefox 4'?

[Paul McGrath]

Urs,
  The uninstall doesn't need to be a msi uninstall it can be any command line uninstall that is silent so you can do firefox "..\..\uninstall\helper.exe" /S
  Adobe Reader X actually uninstalls all versions during its install so it takes care of it for you.  However, with Reader X you need to follow the instructions to extract the .exe so you get AcroRead.msi and data1.cab file as that is the only way you can deploy silently.
Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: Urs Rau (UK) [mailto:urs.rau at om.org] 
Sent: 01 September 2011 09:28
To: Paul McGrath
Cc: wpkg-users at lists.wpkg.org
Subject: Re: [wpkg-users] wpkg - how to upgrade between different products like 'firefox 3' to 'firefox 4'?

Hi Paul,

On 31 Aug 2011, at 20:26, Paul McGrath wrote:

> All the firefox versions just upgrade by uninstalling the older version during the self contained installation.  We have only ever had one 'firefox', 'adode reader', 'flash player' etc.... package.  You just create a 'firefoxv2' package for your test system and once I've proven it installs then rename it to 'firefox'.

Yes, in hindsight, that is 100% what we should have done. But back in the firefox 1 and 2 and 3 days it was actually 'common' to be on a specific version and to have different groups of users on different versions because of add-on/extension dependencies etc. 
And in some ways that problem is still with us. We can usually upgrade some (most!) of our users to the latest firefox, but some workplaces are dependant on add-ons or extensions that aren't always available in a timely fashion for the latest version.

> As another reply stated you can put an uninstall 'msiexec /x {???????}' as an install line to remove the previous versions with error trapping if they don't exist.

Yes, thanks, that should work for adobe reader switch from 9 to X, thanks. But I don't think thunderbird and firefox are msi installs.

Regards,


-- 
Urs Rau