I'll start by saying that I dislike the term "advertised" in this
situation, just like I dislike it in the context of COM registration
from the Class table in the MSI file. The context here is resilience.
There are descriptors in shortcuts (and COM registration from the Class
table) that basically contain the guids for ProductCode and component,
plus the feature name. Windows goes through these to find the target
file, and this automatically invokes resiliency checking and repair up
to the feature level.
The goal of this is to repair what appears to be a broken product
(because files or registry entries are missing). This may require the
CD, yes, and it might seem like a damn nuisance but something is broken.
The main reaction to this situation is usually something like "it's
working ok for me, why does it want the stupid CD" which boils down to a
trust issue and whether you believe that it's broken or not.
(I think Office might do some per-user stuff that requires the CD, I'm
not up to date with where that went in Office 2007.)
Group Policy can deploy MSI files. Whether it works or not depends on
how the MSI has been designed, which usually means does it deploy
silently with properties that can be specified on the command line.
Phil Wilson
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Scott
Palmer
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 7:25 AM
To: Mike Dimmick
Cc: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Trouble with Shortcuts...
I'm afraid you generated more questions :) ...
On 12/18/06, Mike Dimmick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
An advertised shortcut goes through the Windows Installer engine
rather than running the program (or document) directly. This enables
Windows Installer to check that all components of the required feature
are present (which it does by examining the KeyPath of each component of
the feature that the shortcut links to) and install them or repair them
as necessary.
Shortcuts can link to features? I only know how to make a shortcut link
to a component. How do you make a shortcut that knows what feature it
is a part of so that it can make sure all of the components for that
feature are installed?
If you've ever seen an Office application prompt you for its
install CD when you try to run it from a shortcut, you now know why.
Yes, and if you've ever had the CD handy when that happened you are one
of the lucky few :). I guess it's a nice source of frustration, but of
little practical value in my opinion. Apart from the "Group Policy"
sort of network-based deployment, that is. I've never actually seen
that either.. but might have a need for it to install work nodes on a
sort of distributed computing project. I'll have to research that
aspect more. Does Windows Installer have a way to automatically install
to many machines in a domain without user intervention at each machine?
Sorry, getting off-topic.
Regards,
Scott
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