I’m currently stuck with an Installshield project for installing our ASP.Net Application and need to implement upgrading. From my initial investigation it seems extremely complicated for what is essentially copying over a number of files.
Of the options available: patches and small, minor and major upgrades, what seems to most suit our needs is a patch but it is done as a separate .exe.
Is there a way to include patches in the full setup.exe or another recommendation that makes the whole process less complicated.
EDIT
Any alternative recommendation still needs to be done as part of an installer.
No, there is no way to include patches in the installer setup.exe. Patches, as well as small and minor updates, are applied to already installed application. I mean users already used the original installation package to install your application. And patch update contains only small set of files that are modified.
What you want is a major update. This kind of package contains all the required files, and it can be used to install the application for the first time. In case where the application is already installed, this kind of installation package will automatically remove the old version and install the new one.