Update / upgrade existing installations to a newer version

[mjakobi]

Hi there,
I've got several machines here with an older version (2.0 Build 49.0) of PDF-Xchange viewer (free version) installed.
Is it possible to update an existing installation to the most recent version without having to uninstall the old one?
I'd like to put a link to the setup file into the loginscript, run a silent setup that updates the existing installation.

When I execute the installer manually it seems that it doesn't even recognize the existing version and tries to install the new version in a different folder.


Thanks in advance für you help.

Regards --
Markus

[John - Tracker Supp]

Hi Markus,

Ordinarily - it would be possible to update without an formal uninstall however - because the PDF-XChange Viewer is now included as an option by default with most of our installers it was necessary to modify the installations paths and program links etc, so if you installed say as part of our PDF-XChange PRO driver bundle and then later downloaded and installed an update of the Viewer only, the install folder etc would be common - no matter which installer you used - this took some re-engineering of the installers and thus some older installations using original install paths cannot be updated to the same old paths.

If you uninstall and re-install now from this point on all would be well in the manner you require - but as explained above - this one time to keep everything tidy an uninstall would be required.

HTH

[mjakobi]

Hi John,
many thanks for your answer.
In the meantime I have tried to do an update installation by "forcing" the install into the existing directory. The application was updated to the new version and even the settings have been taken over.
The catch is that I ended up with two entries called "PDF Viewer" in the 'Add / Remove Software' in Windows' control panel. So to get a really clean install it seems necessary to take the less convenient way...

Two last things:
I've read posts here in the forum saying that custom stamps have to be backed up before uninstalling the PDF viewer - is that right? Is there anything else that a user might have customized that needs a backup before and a restore afterwards?

Thanks again for your support!


Regards -- Markus

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

HI mjakobi,

if you back up the custom stamps as you mentioned you might also want to export the current user settings to a file. https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowled ... nge-Viewer

This is not essential because these settings are stored in the registry and should be available in the new installation, a back up settings file is easily done however and easily restored from so this might be prudent.

Other than that I would say you are good to do the reinstall.

hth

[mjakobi]

Hi Paul,
thanks for your reply,

if you back up the custom stamps as you mentioned

The question is: Is it necessary to backup the stamps? Are they affected by the uninstallation in any way?

From what I've seen while testing it seems that the stamps simply stay in their folder after the uninstallation and when I install the recent version they can be selected from the stamps dropdown.
So is the backup simply a precautionary measure or is there another reason for it?


Regards -- Markus

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Markus,

It's a precaution - back-ups are never a bad thing to have.
And Paul being a bit sysadmin in heart has the usual sysadmin fear of not backing up things

Cheers,
Stefan