Update a existing deployed farm solution

Question

I've deployed a farm solution to a test environment by following the Technet Deploy solution packages page - works well. But development continues, and I need to redeploy.

When I follow the process again I get the error

Add-SPSolution: A solution with the same name "awesomewebparts.wsp" or id "[a random identifier string]" already exists in the solution store.

I gather that I need to either remove the existing version before adding the new version, or issuing a different command to update or overwrite the existing version. Can anyone provide any direction on how this should be done?

Answer 1

One option is to retract and then remove the solution through Central Administration, which allows it to be redeployed.

• In Central Adminstration, select System Settings.
• From the Farm Management section, select 'Manage farm solutions'.
• Select the solution you want to remove.
• Click 'Retract Solution' and confirm. The solution will retract (undeploy)
• Click 'Remove Solution' and confirm. The solution will be removed and can be be re-added.

I'm interested to know if there is any other way to redeploy a solution without uninstalling.

Answer 2

Have you tried Update-SPSolution?

Answer 3

Use powershell commands:

Uninstall-SPSolution
Remove-SPSolution

Uninstall-SPSolution uses some sort of timer job to actually, so it can take 15-45 seconds for the Uninstall to finish.

This guy has a reasonable complicated script for automating this: http://jmkristiansen.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/automatically-retract-remove-add-and-deploy-sharepoint-2010-wsp-solution-files-with-powershell/