Application version numbers are assigned to software builds throughout the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), not solely to production releases. As development progresses, every change—including defect corrections, security updates, feature enhancements, installer modifications, and changes to supporting services—results in the creation of a new build and corresponding version increment.
Our application installation package contains multiple components, including the primary application and supporting background services. During installation or upgrade, the installer validates the versions of all installed components to determine the appropriate upgrade path and ensure component compatibility. Because of this dependency, version numbers for one or more components may be incremented even when the changes are internal or not directly visible to end users.
Throughout development, builds undergo multiple iterations across development, quality assurance (QA), user acceptance testing (UAT), and regression testing. Defects identified during these phases, along with approved enhancement requests, frequently require additional builds before a release is approved for production. Many of these intermediate versions are used exclusively for internal testing and validation and are never distributed to customers.
Consequently, production releases may appear to skip one or more version numbers. These gaps are intentional and represent internal build iterations that supported testing, validation, and quality assurance activities. Version number progression should therefore not be interpreted as an indication that publicly released versions are missing; rather, it reflects the controlled release process used to ensure software quality, stability, and compatibility.