Upgrade Experience - Not so great

[therealcarne]

Per request from @vmw_workstation on Twitter. (https://twitter.com/#!/vmw_workstation/status/164051720190697473)

1) Launch workstation to start a new project

2) Update notification - I have ignored this several times, but I am in no rush today so sure, go for it

3) Workstation closes, upgrade starts.

4) Notified that it will need to Uninstall to upgrade. I think this is extremely wierd since it is a minor update, but ok. Again, I am in no rush.

5) Uninstall proceeds - tells me I need to reboot in order to complete the installation

6) I am in the middle of several things, so I click Restart Later so I can finish my current work before having to reboot

7) Restart windows

😎 VMWare nowhere to be found - uninstall succeeded but no continuance.

9) Manually download and install Workstation 8.0.2.build-591240

Facts:

- I don't know the exact version that I was upgrading from, but I know it was Workstation 8

- As I was doing other things while the upgrade was "doing it's thing" I didn't really pay much attention - as I didn't think it was necessary.

- I am extremely confused why a patch level update would require an uninstall, leading me to believe that perhaps there was a bug somewhere in the installer that caused it to detect either a previous version of Workstation (7x) or perhaps some hardware driver that was incompatible or something. Regardless - this seems extremely bizarre.

After reinstalling the latest version, everything works fine.

[RDPetruska]

therealcarne wrote:

- I am extremely confused why a patch level update would require an uninstall, leading me to believe that perhaps there was a bug somewhere in the installer that caused it to detect either a previous version of Workstation (7x) or perhaps some hardware driver that was incompatible or something. Regardless - this seems extremely bizarre.

There is no "patch update" with VMware products - never has been, likely never will, as there are so many system level service and driver files that make up the software.  Any "update" is the full version being installed, keeping registry entries present while it uninstalls any previous version... with the exception of any custom virtual networking changes.

[therealcarne]

Fair enough - still doesn't explain the rest of the experience tho. It was not a huge issue to me at the time - but I can imagine it being a huge pain point if others experience the same behavior.

[BobAgi]

I've been using VMWare Workstation since version 5 and it has always been like this.

So I NEVER take the offer of upgrading, I always use it only as a notification that a new version is available and then go there in my own pace and download the setup.

Then when all is quiet I install, which means that the installer will first uninstall, request the reboot and then continue.

I imagine that if you don't accept the reboot offer it won't write to the RunOnce key what executable shall be started on the next startup, so you don't see the continuance...