For a programmer, the installer is necessarily an afterthought compared to the product itself. If the programmer is goal-driven, he probably won't want or need anything too elaborate, just to make an installer. WiX does a good job of getting out of the programmer's way, and it's thus a very natural approach for a programmer. But if your employer has decided they want one of those slick installers with its own design language, theme music, etc., I don't think WiX is the answer. Such things can be written in a general-purpose language like C or C#. Or, maybe some of the custom InstallShield-type programs offer this sort of thing now. They probably do, but they're also expensive and not, in my opinion, any easier to deal with than plain old C or C#. Incidentally, what you're describing sounds like a bit of a quagmire. There has probably already been some back-and-forth between management and the developers about their "ugly" installer. No doubt the developers feel they've provided what's necessary, and management must be perplexed by their inability to make simple, cosmetic changes. You'll be jumping right into the middle of that, and you'll be without the technical ammunition to defend yourself... you can draw pictures, and the programmers can make installers, but it doesn't sound like either you or they are equipped to really address the issue of 'installer ugliness.' Personally, I think installers should be as close to invisible as possible. The use of music, custom design language not seen anywhere else, etc. tends to piss me off when I'm installing a product. This is especially true when the product is buggy, expensive, or functionally incomplete. For example, Microsoft has time to include custom photos of dorky ASP.NET coders in their Visual Studio installer, but I have been dealing with the same bugs in Visual Studio for the last 10 years. It's a question of priority, and I don't like their answer.
modified on Wednesday, December 9, 2009 11:37 AM
