Upgrading product that was installed with "old" non-MSI technology?

[alexzfirm]

I figured out all the steps for creating upgrades from one MSI-based installer to another.

Next question - If I decide to go ahead and use Setup Factory for MSI from now on - how do I upgrade existing installations correctly? Existing installations built with InstallShield and did not use MSI.

What are the "best practices" in this case?
Is there a FAQ for migrating to MSI technology for cases like mine?
Can I build a some kind of upgrade table?
Can I force uninstallation of the old product from the bootstrapper?
If yes - how?

Thank you

[Lorne]

Hmm...I'm not sure but I suspect the easiest way might be to do a major upgrade -- changing the product code, etc.

Otherwise you'll need to make sure all the component IDs and contents match. At the moment that means editing all the IDs by hand.

[alexzfirm]

I do not mind editing all IDs manually, but I do not think that it will work even if I do. Since the old installation was not made by MSI the registry entry for old product just does not have enough values (version for example) to make a valid upgrade table.

I am fine with major upgrade. Is there any way detect old installation properly? Make sure that un-installation really happened? Anything else I have not thought about yet?

I would expect that majority of SFWI users should face the same issue.

[alexzfirm]

I got desired behavior after setting the SFWI project ProductID to the same ProductID as my old InstallShield-based project.

This is a hack - MSI Technology overrides all the registry settings for the InstallShield installation and replaces all the information in the ControlPanel/AddRemovePrograms - but is exactly what I wanted...