Software Deployment

if you never EVER plan to uninstall anything. Be that upgrade or whatever means of uninstall then conflict management is limited in its uses. However I have rarely ever seen a site that can claim they will never uninstall anything as such I would say CMDB is a highly valuable solution.

conflict managers Core purpose is to protect your system from breakages during uninstall however in saying that
Conflict management does one thing which is potentially very important which many people overlook.

That item is it ensures applications are actually deployed properly in specific instances. These instances are limited in real world application but equally important.

Component structure is extremely important in MSI creation, something that Installshield has 0 visability off as the component structure in Installshield captured applications is appalling.

The specific item I refer to is this.

When an application has similar components such as

Application A
Component A (Directory A)
FileA.exe = keypath

and another application has similar

Application B
Component A (Directory A)
FileA.exe = keypath
FileA.junk

You run into a potentially dangerous situation which is.

If application B goes down first, there is no issue.
If application A goes down first then FileA.junk will not get delivered as its component state will be set to installed and the components clients will just be updated to include application B

If FileA.junk was important then your screwed. If not its not so bad.

A well configured conflict manager would resolve this. Taking this into consideration go back and have a look at the component structure of an installshield application.

So, in order to avoid this, should component ID's be different and at file level (keyfile), at least Wininstall will use file version rules to install apps.

component rules are a complex world.

way too much to explain in this post but the general idea is this

if files are deploy to same locations component guids should be matched regardless of version assuming the same manufacturer

the versioning rules you mention are a window installer feature as opposed to wininstall which is just the editor. I have gone into much more detail on component rules / conflict management on my blog if you get bored.

Hi jmcfadyen,

Thanks a lot on your explanation especially on the other topic i posted sharedDlls' vs Component. Could you point me to your blog pls coz I would like to know in depth on these both topics. Many thanks !!!

I have gone into much more detail on component rules / conflict management on my blog if you get bored. John, Have done with it and add the URL to your signature. Self-promotion made easy LOL.