Upgrading/Reinstalling 1

[philosinger]

I am working on a project Tracking Program for my company and there are frequent changes to the program at this point. The program accesses data from and MSSQL server that is available on the internet and a few of the users are in remote locations.

Issue 1 When I package the software with the Package and Distribution wizard, the cab file in 13mb. This is an issue because, as I said, a few of the users have to download the new file everytime to run the setup (I do zip it, however it is still 13+mb on the most aggressive zip). I have just started distributing the .exe file for the program (since I am just making minor changes and don't need to distribute any .dlls at this point), but the problem with that is some of the users are afraid to copy that file to their program files directory themselves. Also, when I do start having to send .dlls they will have to copy several files to several different locals, plus there is the issue of registering those .dlls.
Recommendations?

Issue 2 If the user already has an older version of the sofware installed, the setup does not replace the old .exe with the new, so the setup runs, but when they launch the program they still have the old version. Is there are way for the Setup to either uninstall the old version or force it to over write the existing .exe? Also is there a way to put an unintall <My Program> in the Start Menu?

 

[AlexRadu]

You don't have to give them a full setup EVERY time you make changes. The first time you give them one setup containing everything, then you give them a new setup (containing only the changes) - since more than 75% of your original setup is made up of system files/vb runtime, your subsequent setup distributions will be (very) small - the users already have all they need. And, anyway, to simplify distribution, you should make your program as modular as possible (small exe, long list of references (dlls, ActiveX exes)) so that you can do incremental updates. Why not, for instance, have the GUI as a dll, the db processing as another and the business rules as yet another ?

The installation &quot;wizard&quot; that comes with VB is rather primitive. For industrial strengh apps you'll need some industrial strength installers. They are not cheap, but they're worth the money.