Deploy postgres - upgrade strategy - Mailing list pgsql-general

Hi,

I need your kind advice on postgres deployment strategy.  My application is developed on 8.2.4 and need to be deployed to Windows server 2003. Clients may /may not have postgres installed.  How can I deploy postgres silently on client machine?  Specifically:

1. How to determine if postgres is installed on Win2K3, and what's its version?

2. If there is an older version (e.g., 8.1) installed, can I install a new version (8.2.4) without touching the existing installation?

3. If there is an older version of the same version line (e.g., 8.2.3) installed, is it safe for me to upgrade it by running upgrade.bat, believing that it won't break existing application using the old version?

4. If there is a newer version installed (e.g. 8.3), can I still install 8.2.4 as a separate installation without touching the existing installation?

5. If there is a newer version of the same version line (e.g. 8.2.5) installed, shall I simply use it? (same as 3 I guess)

If silent installation command can be provided, that will be great. My fresh installation command is like:

msiexec /i postgresql-8.2-int.msi  /qr INTERNALLAUNCH=1 ADDLOCAL=server,psql,pgadmin,npgsql SERVICEDOMAIN="%COMPUTERNAME%" SERVICEPASSWORD="SecretWindowsPassword123" CREATESERVICEUSER=1 SUPERPASSWORD="postgres" BASEDIR="C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL" DATADIR="e:\PostgreSQL.DATA"


Thanks a lot!
Sean