MSI installer should be able to upgrade to new minor versions within the same major version

[MaanuelMM]

When upgrading Microsoft Build of OpenJDK from 11.0.10+9 to 11.0.11+9 using the MSI installer, previous version isn't uninstalled and replaced by the new one. Instead, both versions remain installed.

For example, the AdoptOpenJDK installer is able to upgrade by removing the old version and keeping the new one within the same major JDK version, as described on their website (the same is true for Azul).

I don't know if this is a bug or something intentional, but I do think it would be a very valuable feature.

[karianna]

@MaanuelMM - Thanks for your feedback - our team will take a look at this internally!

@gdams - Are you able to compare / contrast vs Adopot's installer (is there a user option to choose install alongside or upgrade)?

[karianna]

See #123 which partly tracks a similar concept

[si-chan]

I feel this is somewhat related to the fact that there is no separate JRE any more.
The previous behaviour with JRE 8 (e.g. Amazon Corretto) was that it would install in a jre8 folder and any minor update would simply overwrite what was there.
With the JDK 8 though, you would get side-by-side folder versions - from a development point of view, that's useful if you are regression testing your program and want to compare.

So, ideally there should be options for either behaviour.
That said, I would hazard a guess that there are far, far more end-user installation of the current LTS JDK than developer installs... at least I'd hope so!

[gdams]

at a guess, I'd imagine it's because we (Microsoft) are not setting the UPGRADE_CODE_SEED when we build the installers. I'll take a look now...

[gdams]

@karianna I have prepared a fix internally, hopefully, we will have rolled this out for the July PSU release. It's worth noting that the new MSI installer won't be able to upgrade the previous MSI's that were built without the fix so we will have to wait until the September PSU to confirm that the fix successfully upgrades the July PSU.

[brunoborges]

@gdams before we roll this out, let's make sure we have good UX testing. Can you please prepare a demo for our internal team?

[jax7778]

One additional Vote for a switch and/or the default behavior for the MSI to update minor revisions. It would make updating and securing installations far easier if we could just push the latest msi when it comes to it. I would honestly like it added to WSUS, but I think that is a pipe dream, but an install switch to have the MSI update instead of install alongside seems reasonable.

[karianna]

This has been resolved.