CRM 2011 Managed Properties - how to protect existing un-managed solutions?

Question

We have a CRM 2011 managed solution that includes some changes to a standard entity (account) - i.e. new form and some extra fields. In most cases, we can install without a problem as the changes are merged. However we have encountered some instances where a client has renamed the Account entity to something else (Company) as an unmanaged chage (including view names) and our solution changes the entity name and view changes back to 'Account' when installed, based on the 'last one wins' rule.

My question is, is it possible to protect un-managed changes, so that we do not overwrite un-merged changes? i.e. similar to Managed Properties?

Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, I don't think this is possible although maybe I don't fully understand what you are aiming to do. When you export a solution it will save a snapshot of all the included components. When you reimport, it should set all of the included components as they were when you exported them. If you exported the account entity with a customized name, what sort of logic would you want in place to disallow that change to be imported?

If anyone else has a solution to this, I'd be glad to see it but I haven't come across one yet.