How to skip folder selection form when update installed application via Windows Installer setup project

Question

As the title describes, I am trying to skip the folder selection form when update the installed application via setup project in visual studio(casue the user already selected folder path when they installed the app). I googled online and find a way to disable folder form: http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/437285/Visual-Studio-Deployment-Setup-Disable-Installatio. However, How to know if it is installation or upgrade? If we know it is upgrade, how to get the installation path?

Thanks in advance!

I do not find any approaches to skip that folder form. This should be the reason that many installer tools exist in the market. Since my app is very small, I simply disabled the folder selection dialog. For anyone who are interested, please check this URL: http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/437285/Visual-Studio-Deployment-Setup-Disable-Installatio

Answer 1

If you saved the original install location in the registry, for example by saving [TARGETDIR] in a registry item, then you can retrieve it during an upgrade. You find out you're doing an upgrade because it will set a property called PREVIOUSVERSIONSINSTALLED. The problem is that there is no way to wire it all up in a VS setup project. You want the browse dialog there (not deleted) but you want to skip it if PREVIOUSVERSIONSINSTALLED has been set, and there's no support in VS setup projects for that. You'd need to go into the ControlEvent table in the MSI file and figure out how to skip the browse dialog, as well as have the Back button skip over if necessary, and that's just very difficult.

What's the actual issue? Visual Studio upgrades are complete installs that uninstall the previous product and install the new one wherever the user wants, so why is it necessary to install in the same location as the previous install?