Installshield MSI - Uninstall Merge Module in Patch

Question

New to InstallShield and BasicMSIs.

We have a base installation that includes a merge module (licensing software) We are now releasing a patch to update some of our software including a new version of the licensing software that is no longer provided via a merge module but now a prerequisite.

I can get the new prerequisite to install correctly, however I do not know how to uninstall the previous version that was installed via merge module. The new version of licensing software installs to a new file location so it does not 'overwrite' the old version.

Any suggestions/ideas would be appreciated.

Cheers

Answer 1

Merge modules aren't "installed", they are merged into the MSI at build time. After that their components belong to features just like any other components and they cease to exist.

Put another way, a merge module cannot be "uninstalled". You also can't uninstall a feature during a patch. Components can be authored as transitive with a condition that evaluates to false and this will cause them to be removed during the patch.

The problem with third party merge modules is that you can't really do this unless you choose to edit the merge module in ORCA and take ownership of it.