Anyone else as sick of InstallShield and their bugs as I am?
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I use Windows Installer or NSIS for installation packages.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi -
jdunlap wrote: Windows Installer So do you create MSI's from scratch? Is that difficult? I'm an NSIS weenie :rolleyes: Paul ;)
Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip. - Will Rogers
I've only done a couple of .NET install packages, but since I was familiar with MSI from having done non-.NET install packages, I decided to use it. I use Visual Studio Installer at first, then I edit the generated *.msi file using Orca or else I turn it into XML and edit it that way. I'm starting to use NSIS a bit more now, but I still have a lot to learn about it.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi -
Inno Setup has scripting to it with a special adding. The scripting language is Pascal based, easy to use, and appears pretty funtional. Inno Setup is free. Theres a GUI tool for making the setup programs as well. http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php[^] http://www.istool.org/[^] For the Inno Extensions: http://www.wintax.nl/isx/[^] ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)!
But can it create MSI's yet? The trouble with working in a corporate enviornment, Tech Ops require all installers in MSI format so they can deploy/remove them via Win2000 group policies. Michael 'War is at best barbarism...Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.' - General William Sherman, 1879
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But can it create MSI's yet? The trouble with working in a corporate enviornment, Tech Ops require all installers in MSI format so they can deploy/remove them via Win2000 group policies. Michael 'War is at best barbarism...Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.' - General William Sherman, 1879
No it does not. John
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Inno Setup has scripting to it with a special adding. The scripting language is Pascal based, easy to use, and appears pretty funtional. Inno Setup is free. Theres a GUI tool for making the setup programs as well. http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php[^] http://www.istool.org/[^] For the Inno Extensions: http://www.wintax.nl/isx/[^] ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)!
I switched for InstallShield to Inno Setup years ago because Inno Setup is free and they fix their bugs instead of ignoring them... John
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Caution: full on rant coming... For what must be at least the thousandth time in the last three years (no exageration), I come across a major problem in my setup I built with InstallShield (when my setup upgrades an older version, all the shortcuts are removed) and after much wasted time tracking it down discover that it's a major bug in a major feature of InstallShield Developer that is now over 8 months old and still not resolved. http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?articleid=q107649[^] In fact, they even carried over this bug into their new release and still did not fix it! This is just gettting ridiculous, we paid for the premium developer version and I've wasted more time than I really want to remember working around nearly every feature in the program. Every new release is like going into battle. We expect it now and have to allot 3 extra days at minimum just to build and test the setup which isn't re-written from scratch, but is the same one we've been using for years and need to keep tweaking to get it to work. They are probably one of the few companies left that in many cases, still insist you must pay for an upgrade to fix bugs that they introduced in the last version. And it appears I can't even discuss this with them without having a credit card handy for support!@!@#$@# I can understand why it's gone on so long: those bugs and the Byzantine features in InstallShield provide a lot of job security for a lot of people. I, however, own my own company and don't have the time or money to support their foolishness anymore, can anyone suggest a good installation product with scripting like InstallShield has for out of the ordinary requirements? ------------
I started beta testing both InstallShield and Wise before Windows Installer went public many years ago. I stuck with Wise because right off the bat, they allowed access to ALL MSI tables and you can even create your own. Around version 3, IS gave you access to some. Around 4 they gave you access to all...finally...but their product has always been slow, monsterous, and buggy. Wise has never left me down and it's a simple UI packed with features that you are forced to use. And, of course, since Custom actions are allowed by Windows Installer - not the UI that authors them - you can always create your own binary custom actions, as well as scripting (JScript, VBScript, of course) because, again, it's Windows Installer. Basically, all these MSI authoring tools are nothing more than an IDE that offers a few pre-built custom actions, like detecting the version of Internet Explorer installed (suprisingly, this has never been a feature of Windows Installer!) and bootstrapping setups. They all can only do what Windows Installer allows them to do, so don't get put-on by the hype. If you're sick of the InstallShield IDE, use something simpler than doesn't exponentially multiply the feature set with each release instead of fixing bugs: use Wise instead. ...it's the "Wise" solution (sorry, I just had to say it).
Reminiscent of my younger years...
10 LOAD "SCISSORS" 20 RUN
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oh... but that's nothing new I guess :-O Well, I'm on InstallShield 6.3, and won't upgrade :cool: Mostly, it's the sheer complexity and unintuitiveness. How many thingies to click to add a file to a setup, if it should go into a different directory?? And a design complaint - the complex scripting actually tempts people to move functionality to the installation that is better left to the application. Support for incremental installs was meager at least up to and including 6.x (read: a kludgy workaround, that turned the "uninstall what I installed" into a nightmare) Inflexibility! There are some predefined dialog templates that allow some custom messages - but that these messages could be a little bit wider than 80 pixels? No sir. SELF EXTRACTING ARCHIVES!!!! AAARGGGGHHHHH!!!! :mad: :eek: :mad: OK... Create a single-EXE-Install, and try to install it: "Reading Contents of Archive" - seems to touch every byte, to count them. Well, ok. Then.. "Extracting Archive" - :wtf:, didn't you just touch all the bytes? Try this with 300+MB archive. YUCK! OK.. now, after two blue bars we got it... NAY!!! Starting up Installshield engine!! (related note: try the following quad-click an 6.x installation, so it starts two instances. The error message THE END USER gets at this point is an insult to usability) It takes AGES before you're at the first screen! *takes his pills* Concluding, if this is a high quality product, Michelle Pfeiffer does my dishes.
"Der Geist des Kriegers ist erwacht / Ich hab die Macht" StS
sighist | Agile Programming | doxygenInstallShield is only a front end to Windows Installer. If you are not scared of the idea of going one level down into the plumbering, then Windows Installer is for you.
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Caution: full on rant coming... For what must be at least the thousandth time in the last three years (no exageration), I come across a major problem in my setup I built with InstallShield (when my setup upgrades an older version, all the shortcuts are removed) and after much wasted time tracking it down discover that it's a major bug in a major feature of InstallShield Developer that is now over 8 months old and still not resolved. http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?articleid=q107649[^] In fact, they even carried over this bug into their new release and still did not fix it! This is just gettting ridiculous, we paid for the premium developer version and I've wasted more time than I really want to remember working around nearly every feature in the program. Every new release is like going into battle. We expect it now and have to allot 3 extra days at minimum just to build and test the setup which isn't re-written from scratch, but is the same one we've been using for years and need to keep tweaking to get it to work. They are probably one of the few companies left that in many cases, still insist you must pay for an upgrade to fix bugs that they introduced in the last version. And it appears I can't even discuss this with them without having a credit card handy for support!@!@#$@# I can understand why it's gone on so long: those bugs and the Byzantine features in InstallShield provide a lot of job security for a lot of people. I, however, own my own company and don't have the time or money to support their foolishness anymore, can anyone suggest a good installation product with scripting like InstallShield has for out of the ordinary requirements? ------------
No new stuff about InstallShield. By the time you waited an answer, you could have engineered an entire deploy system, based on Windows Installer. Try the SDK, I believe you won't ever go back to InstallShield any more.
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InstallShield is only a front end to Windows Installer. If you are not scared of the idea of going one level down into the plumbering, then Windows Installer is for you.
Stephane Rodriguez. wrote: InstallShield is only a front end to Windows Installer. Gross over simplification, and thus not accurate. Installshield includes a lot more than what you get down at the MSI level, including a scripting language with built in libraries. William E. Kempf
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Inno Setup has scripting to it with a special adding. The scripting language is Pascal based, easy to use, and appears pretty funtional. Inno Setup is free. Theres a GUI tool for making the setup programs as well. http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php[^] http://www.istool.org/[^] For the Inno Extensions: http://www.wintax.nl/isx/[^] ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)!
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Caution: full on rant coming... For what must be at least the thousandth time in the last three years (no exageration), I come across a major problem in my setup I built with InstallShield (when my setup upgrades an older version, all the shortcuts are removed) and after much wasted time tracking it down discover that it's a major bug in a major feature of InstallShield Developer that is now over 8 months old and still not resolved. http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?articleid=q107649[^] In fact, they even carried over this bug into their new release and still did not fix it! This is just gettting ridiculous, we paid for the premium developer version and I've wasted more time than I really want to remember working around nearly every feature in the program. Every new release is like going into battle. We expect it now and have to allot 3 extra days at minimum just to build and test the setup which isn't re-written from scratch, but is the same one we've been using for years and need to keep tweaking to get it to work. They are probably one of the few companies left that in many cases, still insist you must pay for an upgrade to fix bugs that they introduced in the last version. And it appears I can't even discuss this with them without having a credit card handy for support!@!@#$@# I can understand why it's gone on so long: those bugs and the Byzantine features in InstallShield provide a lot of job security for a lot of people. I, however, own my own company and don't have the time or money to support their foolishness anymore, can anyone suggest a good installation product with scripting like InstallShield has for out of the ordinary requirements? ------------
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Stephane Rodriguez. wrote: InstallShield is only a front end to Windows Installer. Gross over simplification, and thus not accurate. Installshield includes a lot more than what you get down at the MSI level, including a scripting language with built in libraries. William E. Kempf
You are right, .rul InstallShield scripts have a lot of value these days.
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Caution: full on rant coming... For what must be at least the thousandth time in the last three years (no exageration), I come across a major problem in my setup I built with InstallShield (when my setup upgrades an older version, all the shortcuts are removed) and after much wasted time tracking it down discover that it's a major bug in a major feature of InstallShield Developer that is now over 8 months old and still not resolved. http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?articleid=q107649[^] In fact, they even carried over this bug into their new release and still did not fix it! This is just gettting ridiculous, we paid for the premium developer version and I've wasted more time than I really want to remember working around nearly every feature in the program. Every new release is like going into battle. We expect it now and have to allot 3 extra days at minimum just to build and test the setup which isn't re-written from scratch, but is the same one we've been using for years and need to keep tweaking to get it to work. They are probably one of the few companies left that in many cases, still insist you must pay for an upgrade to fix bugs that they introduced in the last version. And it appears I can't even discuss this with them without having a credit card handy for support!@!@#$@# I can understand why it's gone on so long: those bugs and the Byzantine features in InstallShield provide a lot of job security for a lot of people. I, however, own my own company and don't have the time or money to support their foolishness anymore, can anyone suggest a good installation product with scripting like InstallShield has for out of the ordinary requirements? ------------
Wise installer (buy the older version on eBay or the used software store; version 9 doesn't really give anything that version 6, 7, or 8 doesn't already have) - highly recommended. I actually even use it to create backups of source code. InnoSetup is also very good, and obviously a lot cheaper.
Todd C. Wilson (meme@nopcode.com) NOPcode.com "Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the Way." - Chuang-Tzu "Zen in the Martial Arts"
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Caution: full on rant coming... For what must be at least the thousandth time in the last three years (no exageration), I come across a major problem in my setup I built with InstallShield (when my setup upgrades an older version, all the shortcuts are removed) and after much wasted time tracking it down discover that it's a major bug in a major feature of InstallShield Developer that is now over 8 months old and still not resolved. http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?articleid=q107649[^] In fact, they even carried over this bug into their new release and still did not fix it! This is just gettting ridiculous, we paid for the premium developer version and I've wasted more time than I really want to remember working around nearly every feature in the program. Every new release is like going into battle. We expect it now and have to allot 3 extra days at minimum just to build and test the setup which isn't re-written from scratch, but is the same one we've been using for years and need to keep tweaking to get it to work. They are probably one of the few companies left that in many cases, still insist you must pay for an upgrade to fix bugs that they introduced in the last version. And it appears I can't even discuss this with them without having a credit card handy for support!@!@#$@# I can understand why it's gone on so long: those bugs and the Byzantine features in InstallShield provide a lot of job security for a lot of people. I, however, own my own company and don't have the time or money to support their foolishness anymore, can anyone suggest a good installation product with scripting like InstallShield has for out of the ordinary requirements? ------------
For NAV 4.0 we rewrote our installer in InstallShield 4.0 (I think it was 4, maybe 5, but it's not important). NAV's installer is really complex, with several branches depending on the OS and even the hardware (we install different DOS components on Japanese PC-98 boxes). Anyway, since the IS version we were using was itself under development, we kept running into all sorts of bugs in IS. Every time we reported one, they replied with "sorry, we can't repro it here with a test install." Never mind that all their test install did was install Notepad. So in the end, NAV's install script ended up having all sorts of ugly nasty workarounds for IS bugs. This was in 1997 and I'm dismayed (though not totally surprised) that they haven't changed their act since. --Mike-- "I'm working really, really fast at the moment, so a 3 minute outage becomes, due to time dilation, a 5 minute outage." -- Chris Manuder, relativistic system administrator Ericahist | Homepage | RightClick-Encrypt | 1ClickPicGrabber
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For NAV 4.0 we rewrote our installer in InstallShield 4.0 (I think it was 4, maybe 5, but it's not important). NAV's installer is really complex, with several branches depending on the OS and even the hardware (we install different DOS components on Japanese PC-98 boxes). Anyway, since the IS version we were using was itself under development, we kept running into all sorts of bugs in IS. Every time we reported one, they replied with "sorry, we can't repro it here with a test install." Never mind that all their test install did was install Notepad. So in the end, NAV's install script ended up having all sorts of ugly nasty workarounds for IS bugs. This was in 1997 and I'm dismayed (though not totally surprised) that they haven't changed their act since. --Mike-- "I'm working really, really fast at the moment, so a 3 minute outage becomes, due to time dilation, a 5 minute outage." -- Chris Manuder, relativistic system administrator Ericahist | Homepage | RightClick-Encrypt | 1ClickPicGrabber
Funny thing: since I posted this I got a reply back from IS and they said they understand the "critical nature of this problem" and "We are making every effort to provide a resolution this year" This year! If everything else wasn't the last straw that certainly is. ------------