Raymond is on a roll... (shared files, versioning and setup)

Fellow blogger Raymond Chen has posted yet another blog of note to setup developers. I'm going to use a different example than he did, plus use it as a springboard for yet another rant. If you remember back to Windows 95, especially when configuring network settings, it would prompt for the CD (bad) and then prompt to if you wanted to overwrite a newer version of a file with an older version (even worse). As an added bonus, it asked this question more than once (the absolute worst).

Why did it do this? Read Raymond's answer. For this specific example, most people installed updates to the original TCP/IP stack. Windows 95 wanted to restore the initial version of all files in all cases. This could leave the user hosed if they didn't answer the questions consistently. Microsoft learned from this example. We should, too.

Lets look at how the MSI engine handles patching. OK, maybe that would be too long of a rant:) The essential thing to take away is that a MSI patch (msp file) will not overwrite a newer version of a file with an older version. In the usual case, this is not a problem, since all identically named DLL's are always backwards compatible (in Utopian software development), right? This is a decision the Windows Installer engine designers had to make up-front. And as long as we are in Utopia, it works.

If you recall, many older InstallShield installations also prompted the user on uninstall if they wanted to remove a DLL that is marked as shared, since no other programs claim they are using it. The more modern versions of InstallShield don't. Why? They expect us (setup developers) to get it right. Make sure you are using the appropriate method of installing files that may be shared by other installations. In the MSI world, Merge Modules accomplish this. But especially for non-MSI installations, make sure you are setting the "shared" flag, so the uninstallation of you application does not impact other installed applications by removing files critical to their operation.

As a side note, Raymond links to an older article related to asking useless questions that is quite humorous, yet further proves this important point: If you ask the user a technical question, odds are they they're just going to stare at it blankly for a while, then try to cancel out of it.

Don't make these mistakes.