In case anyone is actually interested in a "straight up" MSI installer for Enterprise Library that doesn't use the installer classes, here is what's involved.
EL installs a variety of Event Sources, Performance Counters and WMI schema in order to implement its instrumentation features. They go in that order of difficulty: Event logs and sources are really just a bunch of registry entries, so they could be done with WiX as it is with the standard Registry stuff. This just takes a little effort. Perf counters should be something WiX can do because both 2.0 and 3.0 have a CA to support installing the counter. The trick with the .NET perf counters is that the installer class dynamically generates the INI file in a temp file during the install execution. You'd need this file, along with the registry keys in order to create the WiX authoring to install them. However, it should basically follow along the perf counter sample from the WiX docs otherwise. The WMI stuff is by far the hardest. The WMI installer classes are similar to perf counter ones in that they dynamically generate the MOF files and such that are fed into the MOF compiler. There is also no explicit CA support for the MOF compiler, but the .NET Framework seems to just use the Process class to do this, so the WiX quiet execution CA should suffice to fill the gap. The nice thing with the WMI stuff is that the important files seem to be left on the file system, so they should be "harvestable" to include in an install package. It is just a little less clear what all authoring is required to actually make this stuff work right. All in all though, it does seem to be something that could be done, even without any extra support in WiX to make it happen. This could be used to create a wixlib or merge module for EL (GAC or no GAC) if someone really wanted to. The downside is that its a bit painful to keep in sync with the source, but in reality, these parts of EL haven't changed much at all. Takers? :) Joe K. ----- Original Message ----- From: Simon Burgess To: 'John Hidey' ; 'John Vottero' ; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2006 2:53 PM Subject: Re: [WiX-users] GAC and call Custom Action I am using the Enterprise Library in this way as well. I decided to install the assembly into the GAC, also install the assembly to somewhere on the file system and finally install a batch file which is executed via a custom action after InstallFinalize that runs installutil - I know its not a particular elegant solution but its what I have right now From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Hidey Sent: 27 July 2006 18:04 To: John Vottero; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] GAC and call Custom Action This was not my decision. This is how the Microsoft enterprise library 2.0 does it. We have signed the msentlib 2.0 and are putting in the gac and want to get all the instrumentation installed for it also with the installer. From: John Vottero [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 1:03 PM To: John Hidey; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: RE: [WiX-users] GAC and call Custom Action I don't think it's a good idea to put Installer classes in the same assembly that they're installing for. This is one of the reasons. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Hidey Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 1:51 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [WiX-users] GAC and call Custom Action Here is my problem everyone. I have a msi that installs several files into the gac. I DO NOT create a shadow copy of these files on the file system until my property called CREATESHADOW has a value of 1. These assemblies have installers in them that I need to call. (I know managed installers in not recommended but have to get done quickly) When I put my custom action in and call InstallUtilLib the file isn't actually on the file system. Is there a way to have InstallUtilLib refer the file via its temporary location that is used by the installer? Thoughts? Thanks everyone in advance. John ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys -- and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys -- and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
