Visual studio retracts and reinstalls my features, can I tell it to just update?

Question

It appears Visual Studio 2010's out of the box functionality for Deploy retracts and installs my features. Can I tell it instead to perform an update-spsolution instead of removing the entire thing?

This isn't a real-life scenario as on test and production environments i will be performing an update, not a removal and reinstall.

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can install CKSDev extension using VS.NET extension Manager, if you have not already done so. It provides a project configuration called Upgrade Solution. You can switch to it by going to project properties as shown below:

By going to Project’s property pages (SharePoint tab), you can also inspect what actions it takes.

Answer 2

Using CKSDev you can also create your own deploying configuration (SharePoint tab in project's properties) with extra steps that CKSDev adds, including call to external powershell scripts. I like this extension a lot :)