Summary

Performing a minor upgrade across certain versions of InstallShield can result in a none functioning Add/Remove Programs entry.

Symptoms

Performing a minor upgrade across certain versions of InstallShield can result in a none functioning Add/Remove Programs entry. Specifically the minor upgrade would have to have been created so that the original install was built with a pre InstallShield 12 version and the latest install InstallShield 12 or later. This problem only applies to InstallScript MSI projects.

Cause

The issue is related to the significant change in the InstallScript engine that occurred between InstallShield 11.5 and new versions. Due to these changes minor upgrades across these versions are not supported and a major upgrade should be used instead. Alternatively, there is a manual workaround listed below.

Workaround

One workaround is to remove the values as required in the OnEnd event. This can be accomplish with code similar to this:

RegDBSetDefaultRoot (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE);
RegDBDeleteValue( \\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Uninstall\\InstallShield_{product guid} , "NoRemove");