Make Windows Installer ignore a running process

3
votes

Using Installshield 2010 and Basic MSI project.

I have an exe that was previously installed by my installer. That exe needs to be running during an installer upgrade. Is there a way to guarantee that the installer won't try shutdown the process? Basically, I would like the behavior to be : If file doesn't exist, lay it down, otherwise ignore it.

I have made the exe a key file in a component and set it 'Never Overwrite' to true. Should this give me my desired behavior ?

1
installationwindows-installerinstallshield
It would be great if you can explain why the EXE file must be in use? It sounds like a very peculiar deployment strategy. - Stein Åsmul

1 Answers

2
votes

Never Overwrite will be used by future installers to determine if the file will be overwritten or not by other MSI packages. Basically, this attribute should have been set for the installed EXE.

A good approach is to use a file search to determine if the EXE exists. The search property can then be used to condition the new component.

Windows Installer doesn't automatically close applications, but it does show a FilesInUse dialog which offers this option to the user.