Files not being overwritten even with REINSTALLMODE=amus

Question

I'm pretty new to InstallShield - so bear with me.

I have created a Basic MSI installer that correctly installs our application and, until recently, every time I rebuilt it (with some new files for a new build of our application), it would replace the files with no issues.

However, I rebuilt it this morning with a new version, it flat out refuses to replace any files.

For example, out main exe now has a file version of 8.0.0.15, the one it is replacing is 8.0.0.13; the new modified and created date is 7/11/2013, the one it is replacing is 6/26/2013 for both - it still wont replace the old file with the new one (this is just 1 file in hundreds, but is the main exe and so it definitely gets changed with each release).

I have changed the properties of our own exe's and dll's to 'Always Overwrite' under 'Files and Folders' to no avail (I haven't touched the 3rd party dll's since they never changed). I have changed the ResintallModeText to 'asum' to no avail - should I try 'asumv'?.

Before I have the application completely uninstall itself prior to reinstall, is there anything else I should be looking at to try and determine what may be preventing the installshield from replacing the files on the target machine?

I have no idea what could have changed to cause it to stop upgrading - we haven't had to make any changed to the installshield for some months since everything was running fine.

If you need logs or anything, let me know (though I can't get it to write out the installshield verbose log on install - but I can provide the Windows installer logs).

Thanks for your help!

Lowkey

Is this MSI install? sometimes in MSI install, for each file in the file wizard you have added, you need to right click and set always overwrite option. Select a file and see what it says. – Palladin

Answer 1

Thanks to the comment from @anand which solved my problem as well. In my case, the executable was not updating even when I updated the product version (i.e. 1.0.001 to 1.0.002) and changing the package code for a new build.

The solution for me was to right-click on the executable in Files and Folders (in InstallShield) and select Properties. After checking "Always Overwrite" my executable now gets updated regardless of the product version or package code.

Holofernes

In my limited experience with InstallShield, I can only say that there seem to be a lot of quirks and mysteries like this, and there is not much practical help available :-( – Holofernes