Preferred installation package
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Josh Smith wrote:
I was afraid of getting that type of feedback
You wanted honest feedback. Right? You can also look at NSIS: http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page[^]
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We're looking to buy an installation package, and I was hoping that some folks might have suggestions/tips based on experience. The deployment target is Windows-only, for .NET a app. It seems that there are two very popular choices: InstallShield and Wise. Do you have a recommendation for one or the other? Is there an even better choice? Thanks for any help.
:josh: My WPF Blog[^]
I've never used Wise or any other setup authoring package other then InstallShield. I started learning and using InstallShield back in 1999 using their native scripting language which is a lot like VB6 code. Since 2002 i've been using InstallShield Professional 7.0 and currently using 10.5 to author MSI setups; Vista will probably force me to upgrade to IS 12.0 soon... IS still has issues, bugs and a learning curve, but most of the complexity comes from the Microsoft's MSI complexity and not InstallShield directly. IS support people are very good and very responsive; However, If I was to start from scratch on a new product.. I would take a serious look at WiX. Microsoft's Open Source Windows Installer package based on XML and hosted on SourceForge http://wix.sourceforge.net/ WiX was developed initially by Microsoft employees before it was made open source, and has also been sweeping through Microsoft as their new standard MSI builder in addition to using the MSBuild tool. According to msft bloggers and channel9 videos; Microsoft uses WiX to author the setups for: 1) VS2005 2) Office 2003 (*not confirmed*) 3) Office 2007 .. and i'm sure a lot of other stuff. If you Don't need to support MSI setups; then InnoSetup is worth looking at!
________________________________ Heston T. Holtmann, B.Sc.Eng. Software Engineer
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I've never used Wise or any other setup authoring package other then InstallShield. I started learning and using InstallShield back in 1999 using their native scripting language which is a lot like VB6 code. Since 2002 i've been using InstallShield Professional 7.0 and currently using 10.5 to author MSI setups; Vista will probably force me to upgrade to IS 12.0 soon... IS still has issues, bugs and a learning curve, but most of the complexity comes from the Microsoft's MSI complexity and not InstallShield directly. IS support people are very good and very responsive; However, If I was to start from scratch on a new product.. I would take a serious look at WiX. Microsoft's Open Source Windows Installer package based on XML and hosted on SourceForge http://wix.sourceforge.net/ WiX was developed initially by Microsoft employees before it was made open source, and has also been sweeping through Microsoft as their new standard MSI builder in addition to using the MSBuild tool. According to msft bloggers and channel9 videos; Microsoft uses WiX to author the setups for: 1) VS2005 2) Office 2003 (*not confirmed*) 3) Office 2007 .. and i'm sure a lot of other stuff. If you Don't need to support MSI setups; then InnoSetup is worth looking at!
________________________________ Heston T. Holtmann, B.Sc.Eng. Software Engineer
Thanks Heston. Great info.
:josh: My WPF Blog[^]
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Yeah I was pleasantly surprised. It's got a *lot* of options, but it's simple enough for basic things that it's easy enough to put stuff together. How well it scales, I don't know.
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At one point I did some work on the WiX project and spoke at length with Rob Mensching. I'm *far* from an expert, and it's been about 8 months since I've even looked at install code so I doubt I could answer too many questions. IMHO, WiX is your best option if you want to use MSI. The thing that I liked most about it is that it's XML based. It does not (at least not the last time I checked) provide a way to automatically generate an installer for you. I know that there was work proposed for that. A little more on WiX, it was pioneered by Rob Mensching. Rob Mensching wrote ORCA (MSI Database Viewer) and has worked on the Office install team. I *believe* that he has said that WiX is used by the Office install team currently, if not I know that he has stated that there are many teams inside of MS that do use it. As far as scalability, it is just as scalable as MSI is. Visual Studio install projects are supposed to be notoriously bad, I've never used one so this is hearsay. They particularly fail when doing upgrades and often leave you launching ORCA to accomplish what you want. At my prior job I was presented with the fact that we needed a new installer. The one we had was based on NSIS (an older version). I evaluated many options, including InstallShield (too pricey), InnoSetup (not enough control on what it output), creating by hand (........), etc. In the end I decided that because of the fluidity of our installer I wanted something that would build from XML. I was about to write a bunch of scripts to accomplish this when I found WiX. I wrote some fairly complex installers that looked great and still think that after working with it that WiX was the best option.
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We're looking to buy an installation package, and I was hoping that some folks might have suggestions/tips based on experience. The deployment target is Windows-only, for .NET a app. It seems that there are two very popular choices: InstallShield and Wise. Do you have a recommendation for one or the other? Is there an even better choice? Thanks for any help.
:josh: My WPF Blog[^]
One thing that I'm sure most people are aware of--InstallShield doesn't exist as a standalone entity any more. They sold to Macrovision (the copy protection people) some time ago. From what I heard, thair business was hurt pretty badly by the .NET installer, so they decided it was time to get out. I had miserable experiences with both InstallShield and (un)Wise. I haven't touched either since .NET 1.0. If my installation is more complex than the normal case, the first thing I do is question how well I've analyzed installer requirments.
David Veeneman www.veeneman.com
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We're looking to buy an installation package, and I was hoping that some folks might have suggestions/tips based on experience. The deployment target is Windows-only, for .NET a app. It seems that there are two very popular choices: InstallShield and Wise. Do you have a recommendation for one or the other? Is there an even better choice? Thanks for any help.
:josh: My WPF Blog[^]
Hi Josh, I’ve used IS for a number of years since it started doing msi’s and I’m sad to say never had a happy moment with it. It was summed up in the early days of the msi development when they were promoting their consulting side of the business to help customers write IS installers – I think that said enough but just to help matters trying to do a install for all users of IS (the early versions) on the machine didn’t work and if I logged in under a different user IS wouldn’t work – if they couldn’t install their own app properly what hope did I stand! I had repeated cause for disappointment with IS, issues like being able to execute SQL scripts in recent versions but I needed MSDE bootstrap installed and I just couldn’t get the two bits to work together, ended up writing script to attach databases which totally defeated the SQL execution ability of the upgrade we had purchased. I’ve also had previous issues with COM+ where it didn’t support making a simple client side COM+ installer, this had to be done on the server the thing was running on then that called from the project, this was in V8 I was amazed that a simple client COM+ install feature wasn’t in the app by that time. It wasn’t helped by a OS bug that required a service patch to be installed – the IT dept were really pleased that I wanted that done on their server! I never got on with their scripting language, it appeared to take the bad bits from every other language going, or at least (if I’m being to harsh their) was a mixture of different well known languages. Recently I wanted to launch a .net custom install step as part of the install, simple enough to add to the installer BUT whilst it new it was .net and new that .net was a prerequisite it wouldn’t execute the step if the machine didn’t already have .net on. I think it probably needed a reboot + resume setup or maybe the custom action was happening before the .net was loaded on. I was disappointed that the app couldn’t handle that all automatically for me when I told it I wanted a custom .net action, I think the VS installer worked fine for that. I recently saw a demo by InstallAware[^] at a shareware conf and I was very impressed with it, I would suggest you have a serious look they have a 30 day trial, I have purchased a licence for it but I have only played with it so far so I can’t give you real world advice on using it. I think you will find their upgr
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Seriously, do a search on them on the net and see what people are saying. Back a few years ago it had more bugs than a bait shop and it was so complex to use and get working properly we had to pay an expert in Germany to develop our installation script for us. There were still bugs and at one point a huge one that completely knackered us and while hundreds of users were complaining about it on their "support" boards they only fixed it as a paid for update to the newer version. Maybe things have changed, but from what I've heard they haven't. It's right up there with Crystal Reports, Notes etc for hall of infamy in my books.
John Cardinal wrote:
more bugs than a bait shop
I LOL'd :)
"Quality Software since 1983!"
http://www.smoothjazzy.com/ - see the "Programming" section for freeware tools and articles. -
John Cardinal wrote:
more bugs than a bait shop
I LOL'd :)
"Quality Software since 1983!"
http://www.smoothjazzy.com/ - see the "Programming" section for freeware tools and articles. -
I've never used Wise or any other setup authoring package other then InstallShield. I started learning and using InstallShield back in 1999 using their native scripting language which is a lot like VB6 code. Since 2002 i've been using InstallShield Professional 7.0 and currently using 10.5 to author MSI setups; Vista will probably force me to upgrade to IS 12.0 soon... IS still has issues, bugs and a learning curve, but most of the complexity comes from the Microsoft's MSI complexity and not InstallShield directly. IS support people are very good and very responsive; However, If I was to start from scratch on a new product.. I would take a serious look at WiX. Microsoft's Open Source Windows Installer package based on XML and hosted on SourceForge http://wix.sourceforge.net/ WiX was developed initially by Microsoft employees before it was made open source, and has also been sweeping through Microsoft as their new standard MSI builder in addition to using the MSBuild tool. According to msft bloggers and channel9 videos; Microsoft uses WiX to author the setups for: 1) VS2005 2) Office 2003 (*not confirmed*) 3) Office 2007 .. and i'm sure a lot of other stuff. If you Don't need to support MSI setups; then InnoSetup is worth looking at!
________________________________ Heston T. Holtmann, B.Sc.Eng. Software Engineer
Heston wrote:
According to msft bloggers and channel9 videos; Microsoft uses WiX to author the setups for: 1) VS2005 2) Office 2003 (*not confirmed*) 3) Office 2007
Now that is scary since they take days to install ;)
Rocky <>< Latest Code Blog Post: OpenID/CardSpace - Is it time? Latest Tech Blog Post: Corel Lightning - what is the plan?
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We use a little program called Setup Factory. I like it because its easy to use has a scripting interface and doesn't cost bags of money to buy. Anyone else used both it and InstallSheild? Jbarton
That's what I was going to recommend. IndigoRose Setup Factory ... love it. Used it for years, prefer it to Wise or InstallShield. http://www.indigorose.com/suf/
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That's what I was going to recommend. IndigoRose Setup Factory ... love it. Used it for years, prefer it to Wise or InstallShield. http://www.indigorose.com/suf/
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Is the VS 2005 deployment wizard not sufficient for your purposes? I will stay away from both Installshield and Wise. My application has to do some complex install work and Installshield has given me nothing but grief. IS 7.0 work very good for me, then I upgraded to 10.5 which break the patch creation process finally when I upgraded to IS XI Installshield started crashing during builds. Well after spending some time with their support and hacking the build issue is resolved but I am not happy with Installshield at all.
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Jim Crafton wrote:
consider looking into Wix.
I'm reading lots of good stuff about it. It seems very powerful and it nicely integrates with Visual Studio.
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look up the tool in sourceforge called WiXEdit. Once you get the schema stuff down in WiX itself, using WiX Edit is very very intuitive to creating pretty complex installers. When learning WiX start with the XML directly. Adding custom actions and such are a breeze too, there's more and more examples popping up in blogs every month.
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Heston wrote:
According to msft bloggers and channel9 videos; Microsoft uses WiX to author the setups for: 1) VS2005 2) Office 2003 (*not confirmed*) 3) Office 2007
Now that is scary since they take days to install ;)
Rocky <>< Latest Code Blog Post: OpenID/CardSpace - Is it time? Latest Tech Blog Post: Corel Lightning - what is the plan?
Scary indeed... All the MSI rules that must be executed and verified before, during and after the setup runs is an insane large number; and that doesn't even include any customer build rules. The documentation and complexity of MSI is just out of this world! but just imaging how long it takes Microsoft's build lab to Compile and BUILD the setup packages in the first place for Office and VS2005.. The nice thing about WiX over the Commercial MSI tools is that the latest version of WiX is now multi-threaded to speed up Build times on dual/quad core machines. http://wix.sourceforge.net/faq.html
________________________________ Heston T. Holtmann, B.Sc.Eng. Software Engineer
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John Cardinal wrote:
Never have, I've tried that free one before which was actually very good, I forget the name of it, we used it for a while until we outgrew it.
On a side note, I had to phone and speak with Installshield support last month and the first person, after trying her best to get out of it, passed me onto another guy, who also tried his best to get out of it.
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
Currently working on C++/CLI in Action for Manning Publications. (*Sample chapter available online*) -
We're looking to buy an installation package, and I was hoping that some folks might have suggestions/tips based on experience. The deployment target is Windows-only, for .NET a app. It seems that there are two very popular choices: InstallShield and Wise. Do you have a recommendation for one or the other? Is there an even better choice? Thanks for any help.
:josh: My WPF Blog[^]
Installshield driven MSI project or NullSoft Installer (Scriptable)
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
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We're looking to buy an installation package, and I was hoping that some folks might have suggestions/tips based on experience. The deployment target is Windows-only, for .NET a app. It seems that there are two very popular choices: InstallShield and Wise. Do you have a recommendation for one or the other? Is there an even better choice? Thanks for any help.
:josh: My WPF Blog[^]
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A bit late arriving for this thread but I find myself in a similar situation, going to have to make a setup for a client/server application around May time. I used Inno on previous projects and it's OK(ish). I was wondering if I could use the deployment from VS2005 for a solution (including both client and server projects) developed under VC++ 6.0 (.NET1.1), I suppose I'll just have to give it a go. If anyone has tried this and can save me time by saying it's simply impossible I'd appreciate it. The deployment option I have used in a simple C# application (.NET2.0) and I've had a few problems I think related to user privileges. It works fine for some users and not for others in different groups. Thanks y bon weekend.
I have been using the VS2005 setup project for a server product that is still in the development stage. It is easy to get a setup going, but I've been frustrated by some hassles. The biggest warning that I can give is to save copies of the install project file. We are using version control and that has been a live saver a couple times. VS has a tendency to corrupt the project file. The first time it happened, it gave an error about not finding a DLL that was referenced by one of the assemblies. It took a little digging around forums to find that this is a symptom of project file corruption and the only solution is rebuilding the setup project. I was able to get away with pulling the previous version from the archive and redoing the latest changes. I am looking at another installer option before we get further on this install. I have been considering WiX and after these discussions I'm going to take a closer look at InnoSetup, NSIS and InstallAware.