Update: Delete directory after stopping service, but before copy

[Sebastian P.R. Gingter]

Hello,

I seem to have some sort of a ordering problem.

My installer has components that are windows services.

The update instruction say:

Stop the service, delete all files, copy over new version, start service, done.

My problem: I can't figure out how to do that in this order, without a lot of very ugly custom code. The service creates some files in some other directories which aren't installed, so the installer doesn't know them, still I have to delete them on update.

[InstallDelete] seems too early, as the Windows Service is still running at this point. I can't delete files that are still being accessed.

BeforeInstall seems too late as we're already copying the files here, and I can't make sure I only delete the things on the first file except for a global variable... Don't really like that approach.

I could configure a DummyFile before my Directory with a BeforeInstall (for the same component) that would use the file system API to enumerate through all directories I also have listed in [Source] (I don't know how to access these, so I would need to duplicate that information, which I don't really like), to delete these, before I start processing the File entries for the actual service.

I also thought about using PrepareToInstall, but I don't know how to figure out if my component is checked (or: was checked at the initial installation run), as I have multiple services in my installer as separate components and I only should touch the services that my installer is actually processing (maybe one service was installed manually, then I should not stop that).

Did I miss something?

Thanks a lot,

  Sebastian

[Sebastian P.R. Gingter]

Hi,

I obviously missed something:

Seems I can query WizardIsComponentSelected('myComponentName') and this tells me if that component is available.

I am currently testing if this indeed solves my problem. I am trying to check for each selected component with a service to stop that service now in PrepareToInstall.

Cheers,

  Sebastian

[Vladimir]

Hi,

You could use Check function installing the first service file to stop and delete files and AfterInstall to start/install the service with the last service app file. I.e. say you have exe+dll, you stop before installing exe and start after dll.

[Gavin Lambert]

On 30/04/2021 6:34 pm, Sebastian P.R. Gingter wrote:
> The update instruction say:
> Stop the service, delete all files, copy over new version, start
> service, done.
>
> My problem: I can't figure out how to do that in this order, without a
> lot of very ugly custom code. The service creates some files in some
> other directories which aren't installed, so the installer doesn't know
> them, still I have to delete them on update.

The correct place to stop the service is in PrepareToInstall in [Code].

You can then use regular [Files] entries to install things, and either
[Run] or CurStepChanged(ssPostInstall) [Code] to start the service again.

[Sebastian P.R. Gingter]

Yeah, that seems a good approach.

PrepareToInstall in combination with WizardComponentIsSelected(myComponent) is the place to stop the service.

And then CurStepChanged again with WizardComponentIsSelected can be used to re-start the the stopped services in case of an update.

Cheers and thanks for the help!

   Sebastian

[Martijn Laan]

Op 30-4-2021 om 08:34 schreef Sebastian P.R. Gingter:

My problem: I can't figure out how to do that in this order, without a lot of very ugly custom code.

You shouldn't need a lot or perhaps any code for this, see https://jrsoftware.org/ishelp/index.php?topic=setup_closeapplications

[InstallDelete] seems too early, as the Windows Service is still running at this point. I can't delete files that are still being accessed.

If you have [InstallDelete] entries deleting files from a service and those files match CloseApplicationsFilter, then the service won't be running at this point because Setup will have stopped it for your automatically.

Greetings,
Martijn