Inno Setup - Delete old/obsolete files on update

So, I realize that this question has been asked before. In fact I read through a good 10 of them before writing this, but none of them have a applicable solution and I'm hoping that nowadays someone has found something.

The problem:
My program is build with a script, creating all final files in a single folder.
Those files are included in inno like this:

[Files]
Source: "buildexe.win-amd64-3.6*"; Excludes: "*.key, *.log"; DestDir: "{app}";
Flags: ignoreversion recursesubdirs createallsubdirs


The application has been out there for a few months with different updates. There is no record anymore of old files, though it could be painstakingly re-assembled as we do have version control and I could build the old installers again.

From what I understand, you're meant to use the InstallDelete section to get rid of old files - however you are not meant to use wildcards and there is also no Excludes section to safeguard the single folder we have that may contain user data they may want to keep.

InstallDelete

Excludes

So, how do I get rid of old files? The application is 100 MB and a current user may have 300+ MB of old files that are no longer necessary, I'd love to clean that up.

TL;DR: I want the installer to either overwrite or delete all files in the application directory, except for one folder which contains user data.

1 Answer
1

The easiest solution is to delete all files in the installation folder before the installation.

As you know, you can use [InstallDelete] section for that. But that does not allow you to exclude the "data" folder.

[InstallDelete]

You can code that Pascal Scripting instead. See Inno Setup - Delete whole application folder except for data subdirectory. You can call the DelTreeExceptSavesDir function from my answer to the that question from CurStepChanged(ssInstall) event function:

DelTreeExceptSavesDir

CurStepChanged(ssInstall)

procedure CurStepChanged(CurStep: TSetupStep);
begin
if CurStep = ssInstall then
begin
DelTreeExceptSavesDir(WizardDirValue);
end;
end;


If you really want to delete only obsolete files, to avoid deleting and re-creating existing files (what's not your case, as you are using ignoreversion flag anyway), you can use preprocessor to generate a list of files to be installed for the Pascal Scripting and use that to delete only really obsolete files.

ignoreversion

#pragma parseroption -p-

#define FileEntry(DestDir)
" FilesNotToBeDeleted.Add('" + LowerCase(DestDir) + "');n"

#define ProcessFile(Source, Dest, FindResult, FindHandle)
FindResult
?
Local[0] = FindGetFileName(FindHandle),
Local[1] = Source + "\" + Local[0],
Local[2] = Dest + "\" + Local[0],
(Local[0] != "." && Local[0] != ".."
? FileEntry(Local[2]) +
(DirExists(Local[1]) ? ProcessFolder(Local[1], Local[2]) : "")
: "") +
ProcessFile(Source, Dest, FindNext(FindHandle), FindHandle)
:
""

#define ProcessFolder(Source, Dest)
Local[0] = FindFirst(Source + "\*", faAnyFile),
ProcessFile(Source, Dest, Local[0], Local[0])

#pragma parseroption -p+

[Code]

var
FilesNotToBeDeleted: TStringList;

function InitializeSetup(): Boolean;
begin
FilesNotToBeDeleted := TStringList.Create;
FilesNotToBeDeleted.Add('data');
{#Trim(ProcessFolder('buildexe.win-amd64-3.6', ''))}
FilesNotToBeDeleted.Sorted := True;

Result := True;
end;

procedure DeleteObsoleteFiles(Path: string; RelativePath: string);
var
FindRec: TFindRec;
FilePath: string;
FileRelativePath: string;
begin
if FindFirst(Path + '*', FindRec) then
begin
try
repeat
if (FindRec.Name <> '.') and (FindRec.Name <> '..') then
begin
FilePath := Path + '' + FindRec.Name;
FileRelativePath := RelativePath + '' + FindRec.Name;
if FindRec.Attributes and FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY <> 0 then
begin
DeleteObsoleteFiles(FilePath, FileRelativePath);
end;

if FilesNotToBeDeleted.IndexOf(Lowercase(FileRelativePath)) < 0 then
begin
if FindRec.Attributes and FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY <> 0 then
begin
if RemoveDir(FilePath) then
begin
Log(Format('Deleted obsolete directory %s', [FilePath]));
end
else
begin
Log(Format('Failed to delete obsolete directory %s', [FilePath]));
end;
end
else
begin
if DeleteFile(FilePath) then
begin
Log(Format('Deleted obsolete file %s', [FilePath]));
end
else
begin
Log(Format('Failed to delete obsolete file %s', [FilePath]));
end;
end;
end;
end;
until not FindNext(FindRec);
finally
FindClose(FindRec);
end;
end
else
begin
Log(Format('Failed to list %s', [Path]));
end;
end;

procedure CurStepChanged(CurStep: TSetupStep);
begin
if CurStep = ssInstall then
begin
Log('Looking for obsolete files...');
DeleteObsoleteFiles(WizardDirValue, '');
end;
end;


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