The System.Configuration.Installer code is rotten. It dumps state information in files in the application folder. That doesn't work too well for installations that are launched from an advertised shortcut in order to install state for a non-privileged user. I had exactly this problem with RSS Bandit 1.3. Ironically RSS Bandit was indeed using a managed custom action to generate registry keys (registering the feed: protocol, as I recall) which are of course a native feature of Windows Installer.
The CLR problem is this: you cannot load multiple versions of the CLR into the same process. It's a one-time thing. If you load via COM, you get the latest version of the CLR that's installed on the operating system, which can potentially break your COM add-in if they're written for an older version. It looks like InstallUtilLib.dll loads the CLR using the hosting interfaces, so it gets to specify the exact runtime version required. I'm not sure whether the CLR version is really an issue as it's my understanding that Windows Installer will create a new msiexec.exe process for each custom action (this is to stop third-party code crashing the main installer service). However, this is not documented (as far as I can see) so could change at any time; there could be a single server hosting all your custom actions in a future version. However, you will always have the issue that if any part of the runtime is broken, your custom actions won't work. Particularly, if the CLR is broken, or any class that you use in your custom action is broken, uninstall may not work. This goes against the principle of the installation being self-contained, as far as possible. If you care about your uninstall not breaking if the CLR or the script engines are broken, you should avoid managed or script custom actions. -- Mike Dimmick -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Vottero Sent: 24 March 2007 15:43 To: Bob Arnson; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: WiX-users Subject: Re: [WiX-users] C# .dll > > DEÁK JAHN, Gábor wrote: > > Anyway, it's not a WiX limitation but a Windows Installer limitation, > so until WI can call a managed DLL, there is nothing WiX can do about > it. Much the same way as with Unicode. We're here starting to run on > the fourth Windows platform with full Unicode support (NT, 2000, XP and > Vista) and Windows Installer still doesn't speak Unicode, meaning that > you cannot customize your setup for languages that don't happen to be > on the list of supported codepages. Another issue WiX can do nothing > about. > > > > And even if WiX could, wouldn't it make more sense to spend that time > beefing up and adding new WiX CAs rather than enabling even more CAs > without rollback or patch support? > The System.Configuration.Installer base class has virtual methods for Install, Uninstall, Commit and Rollback. Doesn't that mean that that it can support Rollbacks? I don't know enough about Windows Installer to understand all the implications of managed CAs. What I do know is that there are many groups at Microsoft that are creating managed CAs to support their products and they aren't creating unmanaged CAs and they aren't documenting what their managed CAs actually do so ISV's are left stuck in the middle. We have to reverse engineer the Microsoft managed CAs so we can develop "proper" installers. The situation is clearly broken and it's up to Microsoft to fix it. John Vottero ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
