Dong-
I notice your Microsoft.com email address and as such I'm assuming you are
a contractor working on a project for Microsoft. As such, I'm curious about a
few things:
1) Do you have prior experience writing installs and deploying applications?
2) Do you have prior MSI experience?
3) If yes to either, using what tools?
4) Who made the decision to use WiX for your current installer?
5) Why was the choice made? ( Not Invented Here / Dogfood perhaps? Or maybe
the product lead doesn't know anything about installers either so he figured
he'd just go with whatever eveyone else is using. )
6) Do you agree with that choice?
As for your comments.... your are correct, WiX is far from feature complete
and severly lags other tools IMHO based on12 years of writing installs. But,
don't expect anyone here to admit that.
Problem #1 ... MSI doesn't support these things but I really wish it did.
InstallShield / Wise / InstallAware / WiX shouldn't have to write their own
custom `xxxLocator` patterns for obvious use cases like Process, Service,
WebSite, XML XPath. When the vendors don't do it, developers shouldn't have to
do it with CA's. This is a failure on Microsoft's part, not developers.
Problem #2 requires a lot of design thought into how to componentize /
fragmentize products and then build them all together in various combinations
to get the desired result. I have several years experience doing this with
other toolsets and it's always fun.
Problem #3 is creating dialogchains with entry conditions that detect first
install, maintenance and uninstall servicing and then linking your dialog into
those dialog chains with the proper ControlEvent Conditions.
Justin Rockwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hey, Dong, thanks for the laugh! :) While we appreciate feedback on the WiX
toolset, it's typically not a good idea to call it STUPID and then in the
same sentence ask for help. You're biting the hand that feeds you. Plus if
you think it's stupid then why would you trust the advice from the people
that created it? At any rate, good luck with your "powerful installer."
Since we don't really know how to build those (smile), you may want to take
any advice we give with a grain of salt.
Justin
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dong Fang Xie
(Excell Data Corporation)
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 12:04 PM
To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: [WiX-users] Some STUPID Limitations in WiX
I'm working on a small and simple installer using WiX toolset (the latest
stable version 2.0.3719.0). To my surprise, it is really very very tough !!
It almost drove me crazy. I really don't understand why there are so many
stupid limitations:
LIMIT 1:
Since FileSearch, DirectorySearch, RegistrySearch are WiX elements, Why
there is no ProcessSearch or TaskSearch ?! I need to know whether a
specific process is running before installation/uninstallation.
LIMIT 2:
If all files in a msi package are from different small projects, I can build
a module for each small project, and create a main wxs file to merge all
modules. It should be a good idea, but how can I use the files from
different modules ? There is no way for now. I must control all custom
actions in the main wxs file, and some custom actions need a FileKey to a
file in a module. I cannot distribute all cutom actions in different
modules, if I do so, how can I control the InstallSequence ? Using stupid
numbers?
LIMIT 3:
I defined a dialog which must be shown not only during installation but also
during uninstallation. But how to make it shown during uninstallation ? the
UILevel will be set to basic UI or no UI automatically by msiexec.exe. How
can I beg Windows NOT do that for me? I can use command "msiexec /qf /x
msifile", but how can I know my customer can do that each time they want to
uninstall the msi file ? Is there any way I can define UILevel of
uninstallation inside msi file ?
WiX is a very good toolset, but far from perfect ! I bet the developers of
WiX toolset have never built a powerful installer for customers. I will
never know the limit if I wasn't assigned the job to build a small and
simple installer.
I noticed that there are some extensions in WiX 3.0, but it is still far
from enough.
For LIMIT 1, I've built my own dll to detect running processes. But how to
break LIMIT 2 and LIMIT 3 ? Can you guys give me some ideas ?
Thanks in advance
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