Installer fun
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Okay, asking for a bit of advice. The time has finanlly come when we would like to move to an MSI based installer to ease deployment, and was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a packaging tool. Been using the faithful INNO setup for years, but, sadly, it will probably never be ported to create MSI's as it would mean a rewrite for the author. Any suggestions? I just want something thats easy to use, but can be customised. The packaging tool with VS seems, well pants. Been looking around and tools like WiX seem to be very complicated (I have no love for XML) and smell like they are beta software. The fact the VS plugin for it only seems to work with VS 2003 seems sounds like it does not get much love. What I remember of the big boys (Wise and the other one) 6 or more years ago were that you had to fight the thing, which I never had to do with Inno. Suggestions would be greatly welcomed.
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Giles, Stay with WiX. You spend months developing your software - in just a week you can get on top of WiX. The tradeoff is worth it. WiX is not beta. Actually, it is just an XML frontend to the MSI database structure. There is really not much going on there in terms of hiding the MSI details from you. We have a quite a complex app with many optional features, both inproc and local COM servers, a on-demand driver install, and customized UI. WiX could do it all. I dont know about Wise and others, but with WiX you stay close to the MSI format.
Vivek Rajan wrote:
I dont know about Wise and others, but with WiX you stay close to the MSI format.
Until they change it! Marc
People are just notoriously impossible. --DavidCrow
There's NO excuse for not commenting your code. -- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
People who say that they will refactor their code later to make it "good" don't understand refactoring, nor the art and craft of programming. -- Josh Smith -
Okay, asking for a bit of advice. The time has finanlly come when we would like to move to an MSI based installer to ease deployment, and was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a packaging tool. Been using the faithful INNO setup for years, but, sadly, it will probably never be ported to create MSI's as it would mean a rewrite for the author. Any suggestions? I just want something thats easy to use, but can be customised. The packaging tool with VS seems, well pants. Been looking around and tools like WiX seem to be very complicated (I have no love for XML) and smell like they are beta software. The fact the VS plugin for it only seems to work with VS 2003 seems sounds like it does not get much love. What I remember of the big boys (Wise and the other one) 6 or more years ago were that you had to fight the thing, which I never had to do with Inno. Suggestions would be greatly welcomed.
SharpDevelop 2.1[^] supports editing WiX setups, including a visual designer for setup dialogs. Read more about it here[^]
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Giles wrote:
The time has finanlly come when we would like to move to an MSI based installer to ease deployment,
Thanks for the good laughs. I hadn't read something so funny on the past few months. :laugh: Don't get offended, I've done this myself in the past... :doh:
I have absolutely no idea why you didn't get a gadzillion of '5' votes yet...
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify! || Fold With Us! || sighist -
Okay, asking for a bit of advice. The time has finanlly come when we would like to move to an MSI based installer to ease deployment, and was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a packaging tool. Been using the faithful INNO setup for years, but, sadly, it will probably never be ported to create MSI's as it would mean a rewrite for the author. Any suggestions? I just want something thats easy to use, but can be customised. The packaging tool with VS seems, well pants. Been looking around and tools like WiX seem to be very complicated (I have no love for XML) and smell like they are beta software. The fact the VS plugin for it only seems to work with VS 2003 seems sounds like it does not get much love. What I remember of the big boys (Wise and the other one) 6 or more years ago were that you had to fight the thing, which I never had to do with Inno. Suggestions would be greatly welcomed.
1. Windows Installer is complicated, and all Windows Installer tools are complicated. 2. It doesn't really ease deployment, except offering some features "classic" installers are missing. Use only if you must support one of these.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify! || Fold With Us! || sighist -
I have absolutely no idea why you didn't get a gadzillion of '5' votes yet...
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify! || Fold With Us! || sighist -
Okay, asking for a bit of advice. The time has finanlly come when we would like to move to an MSI based installer to ease deployment, and was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a packaging tool. Been using the faithful INNO setup for years, but, sadly, it will probably never be ported to create MSI's as it would mean a rewrite for the author. Any suggestions? I just want something thats easy to use, but can be customised. The packaging tool with VS seems, well pants. Been looking around and tools like WiX seem to be very complicated (I have no love for XML) and smell like they are beta software. The fact the VS plugin for it only seems to work with VS 2003 seems sounds like it does not get much love. What I remember of the big boys (Wise and the other one) 6 or more years ago were that you had to fight the thing, which I never had to do with Inno. Suggestions would be greatly welcomed.
Always prefered Wise over InstallShield, Wix well we shall see. Suprisingly the builtin Visual Studio 2003 Installer was pretty rich but most people can't find the features (enough articles here at CP on it) Wise is as intuitive as it gets a lot easier then Orca MSI editor :-D
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Okay, asking for a bit of advice. The time has finanlly come when we would like to move to an MSI based installer to ease deployment, and was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a packaging tool. Been using the faithful INNO setup for years, but, sadly, it will probably never be ported to create MSI's as it would mean a rewrite for the author. Any suggestions? I just want something thats easy to use, but can be customised. The packaging tool with VS seems, well pants. Been looking around and tools like WiX seem to be very complicated (I have no love for XML) and smell like they are beta software. The fact the VS plugin for it only seems to work with VS 2003 seems sounds like it does not get much love. What I remember of the big boys (Wise and the other one) 6 or more years ago were that you had to fight the thing, which I never had to do with Inno. Suggestions would be greatly welcomed.
Advancedinstaller[^] works a treat for me, and has the benefit of being free for the basic version. ChrisB
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Fair enough, it just depends on his requirements, all of the stuff I've written I'm the sole developer so I get complete control on what tools I use :). I don't bother with all this "group policy" stuff ;P, write different types of applications.
Just Google it. Failing that try phoning :bob:
Yep, its so we can do a role out as part of a group policy. Makes things easier for the support team.
"Je pense, donc je mange." - Rene Descartes 1689 - Just before his mother put his tea on the table. Shameless Plug - Distributed Database Transactions in .NET using COM+
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Giles wrote:
The time has finanlly come when we would like to move to an MSI based installer to ease deployment,
Thanks for the good laughs. I hadn't read something so funny on the past few months. :laugh: Don't get offended, I've done this myself in the past... :doh:
That bad is it? Not so much me, as I like Inno, but the support guys want to role releases out as part of a group policy.
"Je pense, donc je mange." - Rene Descartes 1689 - Just before his mother put his tea on the table. Shameless Plug - Distributed Database Transactions in .NET using COM+
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Okay, asking for a bit of advice. The time has finanlly come when we would like to move to an MSI based installer to ease deployment, and was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a packaging tool. Been using the faithful INNO setup for years, but, sadly, it will probably never be ported to create MSI's as it would mean a rewrite for the author. Any suggestions? I just want something thats easy to use, but can be customised. The packaging tool with VS seems, well pants. Been looking around and tools like WiX seem to be very complicated (I have no love for XML) and smell like they are beta software. The fact the VS plugin for it only seems to work with VS 2003 seems sounds like it does not get much love. What I remember of the big boys (Wise and the other one) 6 or more years ago were that you had to fight the thing, which I never had to do with Inno. Suggestions would be greatly welcomed.
Wouldn't it be possible to just write a parser that reads the Inno Setup file/script and then outputs a Wix compliant xml file, and then just call wix to build the MSI from that?
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Techno Silliness
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Advancedinstaller[^] works a treat for me, and has the benefit of being free for the basic version. ChrisB
That looks really interesting. Thanks for posting it!
Anna :rose: Currently working mostly on: Visual Lint :cool: Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work.
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SharpDevelop 2.1[^] supports editing WiX setups, including a visual designer for setup dialogs. Read more about it here[^]
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I have not looked at the WiX support in VS, but what the OP wrote sounds like the VS WiX addin is for VS03 only.
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Wouldn't it be possible to just write a parser that reads the Inno Setup file/script and then outputs a Wix compliant xml file, and then just call wix to build the MSI from that?
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Techno Silliness
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Okay, asking for a bit of advice. The time has finanlly come when we would like to move to an MSI based installer to ease deployment, and was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a packaging tool. Been using the faithful INNO setup for years, but, sadly, it will probably never be ported to create MSI's as it would mean a rewrite for the author. Any suggestions? I just want something thats easy to use, but can be customised. The packaging tool with VS seems, well pants. Been looking around and tools like WiX seem to be very complicated (I have no love for XML) and smell like they are beta software. The fact the VS plugin for it only seems to work with VS 2003 seems sounds like it does not get much love. What I remember of the big boys (Wise and the other one) 6 or more years ago were that you had to fight the thing, which I never had to do with Inno. Suggestions would be greatly welcomed.
To get the most out of Windows Installer, you really must know what is going on. I recently bought 'The Definitive Guide to Windows Installer' by Phil Wilson from Apress, which introduces you to what's really happening through what VS does in its deployment projects. WiX is a tool that was developed by a former developer on the Windows Installer team and now has a number of people from Microsoft and some others working on it. SQL Server 2005 setup was written with it. Office are moving to it (not sure if this is for 2007 or a subsequent version). Phil Wilson reads and answers some questions on the wix-users mailing list. WiX takes some of the pain out of working directly with the tables because the one-to-many table relationships largely become hierarchies in the XML. It also has some places where it smoothes over a complication in the MSI tables. On top of that it has a small library of custom actions that can be controlled directly through the XML syntax. v3.0 has a larger family of extensions - a few features that were in the basic schema for v2.0 have moved into extensions. v2.0 is the stable version of WiX. Votive v3.0 works with VS 2005 but generates v3.0 .wxs files, so you need to trust the unstable version.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
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Wouldn't it be possible to just write a parser that reads the Inno Setup file/script and then outputs a Wix compliant xml file, and then just call wix to build the MSI from that?
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Techno Silliness
That would cover the basics: files, registry entries, shortcuts, etc. It wouldn't help with the
[Code]section of the script, however, and that's where a lot of the usefulness of Inno Setup lies.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Okay, asking for a bit of advice. The time has finanlly come when we would like to move to an MSI based installer to ease deployment, and was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a packaging tool. Been using the faithful INNO setup for years, but, sadly, it will probably never be ported to create MSI's as it would mean a rewrite for the author. Any suggestions? I just want something thats easy to use, but can be customised. The packaging tool with VS seems, well pants. Been looking around and tools like WiX seem to be very complicated (I have no love for XML) and smell like they are beta software. The fact the VS plugin for it only seems to work with VS 2003 seems sounds like it does not get much love. What I remember of the big boys (Wise and the other one) 6 or more years ago were that you had to fight the thing, which I never had to do with Inno. Suggestions would be greatly welcomed.
If you are developing for .net I would suggest the built in packaging and deployment in VS 2005 is enough for just about anything, since in reality you can pretty much just copy the files onto a PC to run them. If you are developing for unmanaged apps then all I can say is that I used InstallShield for years and built up a nice righteous hatred of it that others here can attest to. Honestly unless you are doing some tricky scripting or something during setup there's nothing at all wrong with the setup and deployment projects in Visual studio.
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Okay, asking for a bit of advice. The time has finanlly come when we would like to move to an MSI based installer to ease deployment, and was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a packaging tool. Been using the faithful INNO setup for years, but, sadly, it will probably never be ported to create MSI's as it would mean a rewrite for the author. Any suggestions? I just want something thats easy to use, but can be customised. The packaging tool with VS seems, well pants. Been looking around and tools like WiX seem to be very complicated (I have no love for XML) and smell like they are beta software. The fact the VS plugin for it only seems to work with VS 2003 seems sounds like it does not get much love. What I remember of the big boys (Wise and the other one) 6 or more years ago were that you had to fight the thing, which I never had to do with Inno. Suggestions would be greatly welcomed.
installshield
You don't see a WTF in spawning hundreds of threads ?? Or using code found on places like codeproject.com in production applications ... Code that is most likely untested, or barely test, more often than not, not made by reputable developers/development groups/etc ?? .... Wow ...---WTF
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Okay, asking for a bit of advice. The time has finanlly come when we would like to move to an MSI based installer to ease deployment, and was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a packaging tool. Been using the faithful INNO setup for years, but, sadly, it will probably never be ported to create MSI's as it would mean a rewrite for the author. Any suggestions? I just want something thats easy to use, but can be customised. The packaging tool with VS seems, well pants. Been looking around and tools like WiX seem to be very complicated (I have no love for XML) and smell like they are beta software. The fact the VS plugin for it only seems to work with VS 2003 seems sounds like it does not get much love. What I remember of the big boys (Wise and the other one) 6 or more years ago were that you had to fight the thing, which I never had to do with Inno. Suggestions would be greatly welcomed.
Hi, No one has mentioned my free MAKEMSI tool, so I'll have to :-) See "http://makemsi.dennisbareis.com" Its text based, build can be automated and has an extensive manual which includes many tips and tricks. Bye, Dennis
PPWIZARD - Free HTML Preprocessor MAKEMSI - Free MSI (or other database) creation/update tool http://dennisbareis.com/