I'm admittedly hardcore about this but IMHO custom actions should be native code DLLs that have as few dependencies as physically possible (certainly should have no dependency on WTL). Statically linking the CRT then use as few DLLs from the system provides the highest probability that the code will work in the most number of environments.
Personally, development time takes a back seat to correctness and robustness. Yes, I realize that other people face different time pressures. I just view custom actions as an extension to the Windows Installer and thus need to be extremely robust with the minimal prerequisites. Aris Green wrote: > In regards to Rob Mensching's comment, > > > >Statically link. That's what all the WiX CustomActions do and while it > >makes the DLLs a bit bigger it totally minimizes the number of > >dependencies (especially nasty ones like the Win32 SxS CRT junk). > > Static linking definitely seems like the right thing to do. This is > what I have done with VC 2003 and earlier for previous installs. > However I have noticed that some programs, such as a WTL 8.0 Win EXE > (I avoid MFC) I wrote, did not work on a lot of XP Pro SP2 machines > when I statically linked it. The dialogs would not load their > resource templates and were completely blank. However, when I linked > the CRT as a DLL, it worked; I don't know why. > > Also, if the CLR is used in a CA, i.e. a managed function exported as > an unmanaged functions as opposed to the installutil type components, > I believe that you can't use static linking to the CRT and that the > CRT has to be linked in as a DLL. Mayber CA's using managed code is > not such a good idea. I know some people are against managed code in > CA's, but if you know that .NET 2.0 is on the box, they can save a lot > of time. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
