MSI: An Application is running during silent update

Question

I have an application that was installed as MSI package, I have next version of application that I plan to install in silent mode by special program.

When application is running I catch an issue: not all components of application installed immediately, some of them will be really ready only after reboot. And I get unstable application.

I can check - is application running and wait until it closed, but I can't check the situation when user click on shortcut during silent installation.

How I can avoid this? Can I lock application during installation?

Answer 1

I suggest implementing Restart Manager support. Vista or later will attempt to shut down your application via the Restart Manager, you can decide how to handle it within your application (prompt user, autosave, something else, etc).

You won't catch the situation where the user starts the application during update, but it will handle multi-user sessions more gracefully than your custom code will.