Upgrading to New Releases of EA

[CJ]

G'day folks,

Probably a silly question, but here goes...

To upgrade from 3.10 build 496 to build 499, do I:

1) Do a "Full" download of release 499, uninstall Build 496, and do a full install of the new release of EA?
or
2) Do a "Patch" download of release 499, and install the patch on top of the already installed EA build 496?
or
3) Do I have to to both 1 and 2?

I guess I'm not sure if Patch 499 is supposed to be a patch of fixes for EA release 499, or a patch to upgrade older releases of EA to release 499...

Thanks in advance and best regards.

[unnamedharald]

I have never had a problem upgrading from any Build-- even when skipping intermediate builds (though I always download the full version which also includes help, manual, etc).  I simply install the full build-- you don't have to uninstall anything.

Dave Hunt

[CJ]

Thanks Dave.

I'm still not sure what process I should follow to upgrade EA to a new build.

Should I download and install the full-meal deal?  What is the patch for ... a patch of fixes to the same-numbered build, or a quickie way to upgrade (an already installed EA) to the most current build?

[gsparks]

Hi,

We are in the process of switching over to Microsoft Installer based installations, from the older Installshield product.
Due to the way the MSI installer works the new procedure will be along these lines...

Each install file is a 'complete' set up and does not require or assume any previous installation.

Each newly released build of EA will be internally incremented a 'dot' point (eg. 3.10.498 to 3.10.499)

If an MSI based version is already installed on the PC, and you start installing a new build, the installer will automatically remove the old one first. This is required by the MSI.

We are not currently supplying a 'patch' version of the install due to the way MSI works ... a 'patch' in MSI terms refers to a binary patch of the cached MSI setup ... not of the actually exe. And with the high number of builds we release, maintaining binary level patches against previous build versions would quickly become prohibitive.

We will probably make a zipped .exe of the latest build of EA available for those who wish to save bandwidth and manually update their exe.

So in short, the answer is each build will be self-contained and will remove any existing build first automatically.

I hope this explains,
Geoff Sparks