Is there a way to display the previous version of application's version ID before installation begin

Question

I am creating the *.msi installer package using the Visual Studio "Set up" project using VS 2022. I have a particular requirement to identify the previous version of the installed application's "version ID" (which is present in the registry) before the installation of the new application starts.
With "Launch Conditions -> Add Registry Search" within "set up project" I can only get the previous version of the application is installed or not, and display the appropriate message.
However, my requirement is to get the Version number from the registry and display the message to the user that "Application of this version ID is already installed in your system" at the beginning of the installation.
I appreciate any suggestion on other tools(free version and *.msi package generator) which are capable of this feature or is there a way to achieve this within VS "Setup project".

Answer 1

Visual Studio Setup projects (.vdproj) are notoriously underpowered. You can do all of this with the WiX Toolset, but it will take more effort. Certainly, more work than will fit into a StackOverflow answer. :)