Hey Henk,
1. A) Yes, the patches can be visible.
B) WIX and Windows Installer will not check dependencies by default. You
will need to write custom actions to look for components, files, registry
keys or directories to check what is installed or not. There are some custom
action types supported by default inside of Windows Installer that will help
you enable this kind of checking.
C) WIX and Windows Installer is not able to do any logging or reporting.
You must write, either manged or native, custom actions that notify or write
to a specific file. This is a very touchy area and should be reviewed in
depth. An installer (MSI) should be fully transactional. The means that if
it fails at anytime it will rollback and leave the machine in a stable
state. The issue will will run into when logging and reporting is failures
to communicate with the logging server or the ability to write to a file. If
that happens on an uninstall, your package can not be remove. You must then
make sure you are handling that fact. The best practices are not to do this.
D) Yes.
E) Yes.
2. No. I recommend that you use WIX completely. You will run into many
issues if you attempt to use both VS and WIX. There are some "laws" in the
Windows Installer world that would more than likely be broken.
3. I recommend version 3. It will give you the most support for what you are
looking to do.
Thanks,
Brian Rogers
"Intelligence removes complexity." - Me
http://icumove.spaces.live.com
On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 11:53 PM, Henk Roos <henk.r...@aricent.com> wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> My name is Henk and I would like some advice from the users if possible
> about the WIX technology.
> I'm very new to the technology, and I've just moved into a build master's
> position at my company.
>
> We are providing software for a bank, and they require new functionality
> that patches are delivered as Windows Installation packages.
> The requirements are as follows:
>
> The packages should be published in the Add/Remove programs control panel
> applet as Updates on the application server.
> The patch should check for dependencies of previous versions of patches,
> new dependencies of middleware remote clients etc.
> If a dependency is not present, the installer should notify of the missing
> dependency and then terminate, writing the results to a log file on the
> server.
> The un-install of a patch should roll back to the previous version, of the
> files being replaced by the patch.
> Each patch should be a roll-up of the previous patch.
>
> My questions are:
>
> 1) Can all of this be done with WIX?
> 2) If it is possible, can I use build the msi setups using visual studio
> and use wix for the patches (msp's), or should I also create the msi's using
> WIX if I want to use the patching feautures of WIX?
> 3) Which version of WIX is still the best to use at this stage, 2 or 3?
>
> All help appreciated.
>
> Regards,
>
> Henk Roos
>
>
>
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