What does your company do for creating setup?
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Hi, What does your company do for creating setup? Do you use “Install Shield” type application or Setup project or some of your own made application as setup. Currently we are using MFC’s dialog based application as setup of our product, but are thinking of shifting to that MSI using MSI SDK. What does your company do for that?
Regards, Mushq
Interesting noone has mentioned NSIS...
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Hi, Thanks for the info. Since we are thinking of creating MSI setup using MSI SDK but this can be better option. :) A question: Definitely I will read those articles but for now can you please tell me how is the support of Custom Actions in WIX?
Regards, Mushq
Custom actions can be tricky using Wix, but there is a great deal of functionality provided by the extensions that come with it. Everything from editing XML configuration files to creating databases and IIS sites. Quite honestly I've not had to do anything that couldn't be done with Wix. It is also compatible with msbuild scripts, which may or may not be an advantage to you.
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
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Hi, What does your company do for creating setup? Do you use “Install Shield” type application or Setup project or some of your own made application as setup. Currently we are using MFC’s dialog based application as setup of our product, but are thinking of shifting to that MSI using MSI SDK. What does your company do for that?
Regards, Mushq
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sashoalm wrote:
it's adequate if you're not going to need extraordinary features
For us, it's more than adequate. We use it to install our application, register our COM objects, install services, install device drivers, and even do a headless installation to a server box in the same rack cabinet. I've not tested Inno Setup for doing .NET installs, but I can't imagine it having problems.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
You are more evil than Darth Vader on acid. The last version of InstallShield that wasn't an expensive, buggy, annoying P.O.S. was version 2.1 (the Windows 3.1 version). The InstallShield development team is number 2 on my list of engineering teams to be put against the wall when the revolution comes. Spot number 1, of course, is reserved for the Lotus Notes team.
Software Zen:
delete this;modified on Friday, March 7, 2008 6:45 AM
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InnoSetup - http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php[^] It's free and it's adequate if you're not going to need extraordinary features.
Just had a look at this - I like what I see. I have been using the VS setup projects which do not give me all the functionality I want - so I will give this a try. Thanks for the link. :) Regards Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
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Hi, What does your company do for creating setup? Do you use “Install Shield” type application or Setup project or some of your own made application as setup. Currently we are using MFC’s dialog based application as setup of our product, but are thinking of shifting to that MSI using MSI SDK. What does your company do for that?
Regards, Mushq
Inno setup as others have mentioned is ideal. I've used nearly every product on the market over many years and I can tell you with some degree of authority that there are many, *many* reasons to avoid MSI like the plague. Inno is powerful, rock solid and stable, fast and far less problematic than windows setup based installers.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
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WiX - One of our guys has already written two tutorials on the subject here on Code Project: Part 1[^] Part 2[^]
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When setup and deployment project in Visual studio had gotten on my last nerve I took an open look at all the alternatives and I have to say WIX was just about the biggest turn off of them all. Just the website information and documentation alone made it look like a horrible abortion of arcane, byzantine and unnecessary complexity. I remember thinking at the time "only a programmer with a *lot* of time on their hands could love this mess". After thinking about it and trying Inno setup again for the first time in years (which is not MSI or windows setup based) I came to the conclusion that the MSI format itself is to be blamed for a lot of the ills that plague most setup kits out there.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
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When setup and deployment project in Visual studio had gotten on my last nerve I took an open look at all the alternatives and I have to say WIX was just about the biggest turn off of them all. Just the website information and documentation alone made it look like a horrible abortion of arcane, byzantine and unnecessary complexity. I remember thinking at the time "only a programmer with a *lot* of time on their hands could love this mess". After thinking about it and trying Inno setup again for the first time in years (which is not MSI or windows setup based) I came to the conclusion that the MSI format itself is to be blamed for a lot of the ills that plague most setup kits out there.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
Most of the mess is due to the underlying Windows Installer and esoteric corner cases like deploying applications to unprivileged users through Active Directory. That's the driving force behind Windows Installer but 99.9% of installs - including Office, the product it was built for - fail. If you're installing shared components I would say you should go with Windows Installer. If all your components are private - and you should strive to do this even with Windows Installer - InnoSetup is far, far simpler. WiX just exposes all of the Windows Installer complexity in all its goryglory. It's far more understandable than the sanitised (by idiots who didn't know what they were doing) Visual Studio deployment projects. The trouble is you have to read and understand the Windows Installer SDK to know what's going on, and that's impenetrable to anyone who hasn't already been initiated (it feels like a hazing ritual!) Now I've read 'The Definitive Guide to Windows Installer' by Phil Wilson (Apress), and most of Rob Mensching's Blog[^], I'm able to tackle more of the Windows Installer SDK documentation.
DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991
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Most of the mess is due to the underlying Windows Installer and esoteric corner cases like deploying applications to unprivileged users through Active Directory. That's the driving force behind Windows Installer but 99.9% of installs - including Office, the product it was built for - fail. If you're installing shared components I would say you should go with Windows Installer. If all your components are private - and you should strive to do this even with Windows Installer - InnoSetup is far, far simpler. WiX just exposes all of the Windows Installer complexity in all its goryglory. It's far more understandable than the sanitised (by idiots who didn't know what they were doing) Visual Studio deployment projects. The trouble is you have to read and understand the Windows Installer SDK to know what's going on, and that's impenetrable to anyone who hasn't already been initiated (it feels like a hazing ritual!) Now I've read 'The Definitive Guide to Windows Installer' by Phil Wilson (Apress), and most of Rob Mensching's Blog[^], I'm able to tackle more of the Windows Installer SDK documentation.
DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991
Mike Dimmick wrote:
If you're installing shared components I would say you should go with Windows Installer. If all your components are private - and you should strive to do this even with Windows Installer - InnoSetup is far, far simpler.
You're telling the wrong guy :) , I already chose Inno Setup (I started with it a decade ago, then went to Installshield, then went to windows setup through vs setup and deployment projects then trialed all I could find that weren't Installshield and have come full circle back to inno again) and after using Inno setup for some time I've come to realize that all the complexity in windows setup is entirely unnecessary. Inno setup with it's full scripting language is *far* simpler to work with because it works the way you think, no mysterious tables and complex to implement custom actions, just a simple script and simple options that work the way you want and expect them to. I'm not talking about a simple project where you're just dropping an executable and making a shortcut, none of my installs are remotely that simple, some are asp.net, some are winform but rely on com components, you name it I have to do it, but if they were that simple then any product is fine and pretty much equal in results. I think windows setup is *deeply* flawed, it appears to be designed by committee and even the simplest actions are overly complex as a result and it's more than worthwhile to take a good look at inno setup before you find yourself having to buy books and take courses to get acceptible results with windows setup projects.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
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You are more evil than Darth Vader on acid. The last version of InstallShield that wasn't an expensive, buggy, annoying P.O.S. was version 2.1 (the Windows 3.1 version). The InstallShield development team is number 2 on my list of engineering teams to be put against the wall when the revolution comes. Spot number 1, of course, is reserved for the Lotus Notes team.
Software Zen:
delete this;modified on Friday, March 7, 2008 6:45 AM
Take that, Pakistani economy! :cool: (Dark Vader on Acid? wow! that's a compliment!)
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
blog: TDD - the Aha! | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighistmodified on Friday, March 7, 2008 6:57 PM