In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Ravi Patt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 1) How do I change the installshield projects (*.ism) to wix xml document.
The .ism file is just an MSI database. You can extract WiX xml from that
directly, or you can use your built MSI.
> 2) How do I convert the installshield/INSTALLSCRIPT files [...]
I have converted a large, complex installation with a lot of .rul/.h
files into a pure Windows Installer based installation, so I have
experience in this.
First, you should look at what that script is doing and look for MSI
standard actions that do the same thing and use the standard actions
wherever possible.
In my experience, most .rul stuff is stuff handled by standard actions
and the built-in GUI. File/Registry search stuff can be handled by
the AppSearch and related tables and actions. UI validation can be
handled by control events and conditions. Failure messages can be
handled by the Error table, directory browsing by the standard browse
dialog and directory properties, etc.
So first try and see how much of this script you can eliminate with
standard actions and the standard UI facilities.
Next, for those things in the script that you think can't be covered by
standard actions, give a quick post back to the list and describe the
task. Lots of times people think they need CAs and they don't; what they
want to do is often covered by the standard actions and tables or
possibly a WiX extension that has already coded the custom action. From
looking at the documentation myself, I know its not obvious what is
available as an extension.
Finally, for those things that are in your script that truly aren't
covered by standard actions and tables, you'll need to write custom
actions. Custom actions are tricky to write properly and need to handle
rollback and the transaction nature of Windows Installer. Do not treat
these custom actions lightly, treat them as serious programming that
needs to be done very carefully.
We can talk about unit testing them in C++ or C# which is something
I would most definately recommend. Similar to Rob, I prefer custom
actions in C++ instead of C# because of the dependency issues involved
with managed custom actions. While it is also possible to write custom
actions in JScript of VBScript, this is not the recommended approach
because some anti-virus software disables script execution completely in
such a manner that Windows Installer's attempt to host the scripting
engine results in the script not being run.
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