Chapter 13. Upgrading and Patching

In this chapter, we'll discuss planning for and authoring updates for your software. Windows Installer offers an impressive set of functionality in this area and it pays to learn your options early on, before the first version of your software is released into the wild. As you'll learn, building your initial MSI with updates in mind will make your job much easier when it finally comes to sending out changes.

We'll cover the following topics:

• Planning for updates, including choosing the type of update to perform

• Authoring a major upgrade

• Deploying a minor upgrade or small update with a patch