What is a great installer?
-
I can't give an unbiased answer because I hate InstallShield with the intensity of a thousand supernovas. The sort of hate you can only get after having had to use it and become intimately familiar with it over a period of many years. The hatred you build up when you spend a small fortune for the product, come across a serious bug and are told that you *have* to pay for the next version to get the bug fix. We quit using it for a few years now, maybe they've entirely changed the entire product and all their policies and all their staff and are different now. Now that we only write managed code we just use the built in Visual Studio setup and deployment project since it's dead easy to install a .net app.
More people died from worry than ever bled to death. - RAH
John Cardinal wrote:
Visual Studio setup and deployment project
I've been using those for years even on C++ apps. Windows Installer was a significant event. Between the VS Setup projects, the Orca editor and using InstallSite as a resource, installs became very manageable.
-
I can't give an unbiased answer because I hate InstallShield with the intensity of a thousand supernovas. The sort of hate you can only get after having had to use it and become intimately familiar with it over a period of many years. The hatred you build up when you spend a small fortune for the product, come across a serious bug and are told that you *have* to pay for the next version to get the bug fix. We quit using it for a few years now, maybe they've entirely changed the entire product and all their policies and all their staff and are different now. Now that we only write managed code we just use the built in Visual Studio setup and deployment project since it's dead easy to install a .net app.
More people died from worry than ever bled to death. - RAH
John Cardinal wrote:
The sort of hate you can only get after having had to use it and become intimately familiar with it over a period of many years. The hatred you build up when you spend a small fortune for the product, come across a serious bug and are told that you *have* to pay for the next version to get the bug fix.
Why is it that what you wrote reminds me about that Wife 2.0 joke? :~ Marc
-
I can't give an unbiased answer because I hate InstallShield with the intensity of a thousand supernovas. The sort of hate you can only get after having had to use it and become intimately familiar with it over a period of many years. The hatred you build up when you spend a small fortune for the product, come across a serious bug and are told that you *have* to pay for the next version to get the bug fix. We quit using it for a few years now, maybe they've entirely changed the entire product and all their policies and all their staff and are different now. Now that we only write managed code we just use the built in Visual Studio setup and deployment project since it's dead easy to install a .net app.
More people died from worry than ever bled to death. - RAH
John Cardinal wrote:
because I hate InstallShield with the intensity of a thousand supernovas
Double ditto. Well put! :)
¡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! VCF Blog
-
Ah, thanks for that... end of 2008, that's a long time though...
Wout
-
I have been using Inno Setup and before that Install Shield for installing my VC++ and C# code in Win2K, XP machines. I now am running into requirements for Vista-compatibility, .NET manifest requirements for native code, etc. In the considerable opinion of the crew here what is the best way to go in the future for an affordable probably MSI-compliant, manifest-aware installer?
Do we weigh less at high tide?
If you do go down the Wix path here's some visual editors for it: http://wixedit.sourceforge.net/ http://www.indigorose.com/setup-factory-for-windows-installer/ Both are based on Wix itself. -- modified at 14:40 Wednesday 28th November, 2007 I just tried wixedit, and it sucks, the other one is commercial software and looks significantly better.
¡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! VCF Blog
-
John Cardinal wrote:
Visual Studio setup and deployment project
I've been using those for years even on C++ apps. Windows Installer was a significant event. Between the VS Setup projects, the Orca editor and using InstallSite as a resource, installs became very manageable.
John: yoo duh man. :cool: VS 2005 deployment is gonna be just fine. Thannnnx Chris
Do we weigh less at high tide?
-
I was going to suggest the same thing. I was surprised at how (relatively) easy it was to use, given it's a command line tool and all.
¡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! VCF Blog
I've used Inno for sometime. Going to have to look at Wix...
"I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak
-
I have been using Inno Setup and before that Install Shield for installing my VC++ and C# code in Win2K, XP machines. I now am running into requirements for Vista-compatibility, .NET manifest requirements for native code, etc. In the considerable opinion of the crew here what is the best way to go in the future for an affordable probably MSI-compliant, manifest-aware installer?
Do we weigh less at high tide?
InstallAware[^] (we're using the Studio Edition) is working well for us. It is simple to use, flexible and seems to be well supported. :)
Anna :rose: Linting the day away :cool: Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
-
I've been using WiX too, and I like it, but it seems the project is not very alive?
Wout
It's very much alive, but it has an odd relationship with Microsoft. The main developers are Microsoft staff, but developing WiX is not their full-time job - they're referred to as a 'virtual team'. Rob Mensching, the 'benevolent dictator', works on Windows Marketplace as his primary role. Because it started as an internal Microsoft tool, Microsoft retain overall copyright. To prevent Microsoft from being held to ransom over copyright in contributions, any third-party submissions have to officially sign over copyright in their contribution to Microsoft, and this process (from what I see on the wix-users mailing list) takes an exceedingly long time. The combination of using Microsoft employees' free time and lack of third-party contributions generally makes the pace of development pretty slow. In addition, WiX v2 has now been used to produce setups for Office 2007, SQL Server 2005 and Exchange Server 2007. VS 2008 is reportedly using WiX v3. That's how it's been until recently. Rob mentioned a couple of days ago that a future version of Visual Studio Team System will include WiX support and that they've staffed a small team to improve it.
DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991 -
I have been using Inno Setup and before that Install Shield for installing my VC++ and C# code in Win2K, XP machines. I now am running into requirements for Vista-compatibility, .NET manifest requirements for native code, etc. In the considerable opinion of the crew here what is the best way to go in the future for an affordable probably MSI-compliant, manifest-aware installer?
Do we weigh less at high tide?
After using many installers thru the years ive arrived to the conclusion that there is none as good as the combination of NSIS[^] and HM NIS Edit[^] , i agree they dont have a 'nice' intuitive UI, but first, they are free, easy to learn (we are coders arent we) and bla, bla, bla... , works great for me you can make your own opinion after trying it, no nonsense installer program flow (if you get my point :)) awesome control, no need to spill target system with anything else but what you really need on it, man this is going to be my longest post after some years, lol cheers, o//
-
I have been using Inno Setup and before that Install Shield for installing my VC++ and C# code in Win2K, XP machines. I now am running into requirements for Vista-compatibility, .NET manifest requirements for native code, etc. In the considerable opinion of the crew here what is the best way to go in the future for an affordable probably MSI-compliant, manifest-aware installer?
Do we weigh less at high tide?
I use Inno Setup (and the ISTool IDE) for all of my deployments on XP and Vista. I don't care about .NET installation, though - I write all my code in native C++.
-
I have been using Inno Setup and before that Install Shield for installing my VC++ and C# code in Win2K, XP machines. I now am running into requirements for Vista-compatibility, .NET manifest requirements for native code, etc. In the considerable opinion of the crew here what is the best way to go in the future for an affordable probably MSI-compliant, manifest-aware installer?
Do we weigh less at high tide?
VS Setup is easier than WiX, but you (AFAIK) can't (readily) use it outside the VS environment, so say if you move to a continuous integration environment (CC.NET), it won't move with you. WiX has a steep learning curve compared to the other installer technologies I've tried (e.g. XmlFile and XmlConfig tasks can be challenging), but it can deeply integrate with MSBuild, and Votive works well in both VS 2005 and (in recently weekly releases) VS 2008. For example, on our "Release" configuration builds, I copy the msi or msm generated files into our (version controlled) tools release area. I have to say the WiX documentation sucks, especially for v3.0, but I'm comforted by the fact that it's in wide use inside Microsoft, so they share the pain :) The standard tutorial is ok though. For wix 3.0 users out there, here's a very useful blog from a fellow aussie.
-
I have been using Inno Setup and before that Install Shield for installing my VC++ and C# code in Win2K, XP machines. I now am running into requirements for Vista-compatibility, .NET manifest requirements for native code, etc. In the considerable opinion of the crew here what is the best way to go in the future for an affordable probably MSI-compliant, manifest-aware installer?
Do we weigh less at high tide?
Don't know about those specific features, but you might want to check out NSIS. I was using some basic installers before I ran into this one, and the scripting abilities and long feature list (useful stuff, too) made my eyes light up. Whether it meets those specific needs or not, you might end up using it sometime. Nullsoft's NSIS. I think it's nsis.sourceforge.net. You can just enter NSIS or "NSIS install" into Google, and it's usually the first result. Hope you like it. :)
-
It's very much alive, but it has an odd relationship with Microsoft. The main developers are Microsoft staff, but developing WiX is not their full-time job - they're referred to as a 'virtual team'. Rob Mensching, the 'benevolent dictator', works on Windows Marketplace as his primary role. Because it started as an internal Microsoft tool, Microsoft retain overall copyright. To prevent Microsoft from being held to ransom over copyright in contributions, any third-party submissions have to officially sign over copyright in their contribution to Microsoft, and this process (from what I see on the wix-users mailing list) takes an exceedingly long time. The combination of using Microsoft employees' free time and lack of third-party contributions generally makes the pace of development pretty slow. In addition, WiX v2 has now been used to produce setups for Office 2007, SQL Server 2005 and Exchange Server 2007. VS 2008 is reportedly using WiX v3. That's how it's been until recently. Rob mentioned a couple of days ago that a future version of Visual Studio Team System will include WiX support and that they've staffed a small team to improve it.
DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991Interesting, that's the general idea that I had too, but fun to read what's happening behind the scenes. :-)
Wout