Upgrade application using Setup Deployment Project

[wrangler2004]

I have a simple vb.net application that I have created a setup project for.The application is a single exe and uses an app.config filem

My question is, how do I go about upgrading the application whenever I make any updates to my code?

Within the setup project, I see I can set the installer to automatically remove the old version, but I don't really want to do that since it may overlay my custom settings in my app.config.

I really want to be able to create a setup project that will simply update the binary content of my application and keep my app.config settings. I also don't want to have do uninstall first.

I guess I'm looking for something similar to install shield's 'upgrade' option.

I've been playing with several settings and have more than confused myself...How can I accomplish this?

[tlhintoq]

I have InstallShield which integrates with VIsual Studio but I presume that the built-in install maker works very similarly.

All I have to do is increase the assembly version number before making the new installer.

Right-click on the project. Choose Properties. First tab on the left pane. Then click the "assembly version" button in the right pane.

[wrangler2004]

Thanks for the reply.
It seems like the last time I increased the assembly version and did nothing else, my setup project allowed me to do another install without having to uninstall first, but the 'upgrade' never updated my executable. It also added a second version of my application to the add/remove programs.

I'll change my assmbly version and re-compile, then repackage and see what happens again.

[tlhintoq]

Thanks for the reply.
It seems like the last time I increased the assembly version and did nothing else, my setup project allowed me to do another install without having to uninstall first, but the 'upgrade' never updated my executable. It also added a second version of my application to the add/remove programs.

I'm not expert on this, but that sounds like the GUID of the application changed. Which made it look like a completely different application.

[wrangler2004]

Yep, the GUID was changing. VS recommended I change the Product id/GUID whenever I increased the version (from my setup project). When I changed the version and guiid, it did add another entry to the add/remove programs.

I tried simply changing the assembly version on my exe, then rebuilding the setup package without modifying the version and guid within the setup project and when I went to do an install I got the "setup detected a previous version of this product....you must first uninstall..." message.

I guess you can't roll out minor updates to your applications with the setup projects in VS. Maybe I should look in to InstallShield.