Yes, I've been using -cc and -reusecab switches for months and it has been great timesaver ;-)
I've just found out, that using MSZIP compression is better then using no compression. Mszip compresses the CAB file to half the size and still the main bottleneck is the disk drive, so it is faster! then using no compression (there is less written data). On the second run, when cabcache is used, only half the data is moved around and it is again faster. ;-) I've also tried using LOW compression, but the CPU was slowing down the disk drive and there was no significant compression gain over the MSZIP method. If anybody has a better solution, I'm welcome to hear it :) BTW: I had no luck compiling WiX on my own - I have some weird problem (version incompatibility) with mspdb80.dll (I'm using Visual C++ 2008 Express and Visual C# 2008 Express) Thank you Ondřej Zarevúcky On 26.1.2010 15:44, Pally Sandher wrote: > Have you tried using the -cc and -reusecab switches with light.exe? > > Palbinder Sandher > Software Deployment& IT Administrator > T: +44 (0) 141 945 8500 > F: +44 (0) 141 945 8501 > > http://www.iesve.com > **Design, Simulate + Innovate with the<Virtual Environment>** > Integrated Environmental Solutions Limited. Registered in Scotland No. > SC151456 > Registered Office - Helix Building, West Of Scotland Science Park, Glasgow > G20 0SP > Email Disclaimer > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Ondrej Zarevucky [mailto:ondrej.zarevu...@fine.cz] > Sent: 26 January 2010 14:30 > To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. > Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Light: Skip cabinet creation > > Thank you Blair for such quick answer. > > We are packaging manually beacuse we are reusing CAB files for more MSI > packages. Some of these packages do not reference all the files in each of > the shared CAB files and it would be hard to select which CAB to use. > Example layout: > ProgramOne.msi: > - ProgramOne.cab > - SharedLibs.cab > ProgramTwo.msi > - ProgramTwo.cab > - SharedLibs.cab (same) > ... + more programs each using SharedLibs.cab > > Using manually packaged shared cabinets for shared libraries allows us to > deliver our users smaller updates as the shared libraries are downloaded only > once for all the programs. Because we already have the packaging code written > we are also manually packaging the program cabinets using the same code. > > Because of this we don't need Light to create the Cabinet files, just the MSI > file with properly generated Media and File tables. As far as I know Windows > Installer find files in cabinets using their IDs and I didn't find any > problems with cabinets files having more files then referenced in the MSI > database. > > I've located one single line of source code, which when commented out would > disable adding files to cabinets, but it would require me to recompile thw > whole WiX package... Not an easy job to do :( (Empty cabinet files are much > better then hundreds of MBs of uncompressed data copied on each Installation > build) > > (from 3.0.5419 source) > CabinetBuilder.cs:164: cab.AddFile(fileRow.Source, fileRow.File); > > Ondřej Zarevúcky > > On 26.1.2010 14:52, Blair wrote: > >> One way is to turn off all compression in your authoring, and then update >> the Media table after you create the cabinets, but you noticed that that >> results in the files still being laid out (copied). >> >> You could (somehow) pre-calculate the final cabinet file order and place the >> cab files in their "smart-cabbing" locations. If the cabinet file contents >> aren't different they won't be recabbed. >> >> I don't know what you are gaining by packaging the files "manually" yourself >> using CABARC, however, since the exact same cabinet creation code is used by >> light.exe as cabarc.exe uses to create cabinet files. >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Ondrej Zarevucky [mailto:ondrej.zarevu...@fine.cz] >> Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 5:12 AM >> To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. >> Subject: [WiX-users] Light: Skip cabinet creation >> >> Hi, >> I have a bit weird question/feature request: >> - Is there a way, how to skip cabinet creation? I would like Light to >> create only the MSI package. >> >> We are packaging all the files manually using CABARC from "Microsoft >> Cabinet Software Development Kit" and it takes unnecessary time and >> disk space to package the cabinet files in Light once more. Even when >> using Cabinet cache and setting no compression in our<Media ... /> >> elemenets it takes time to copy all the data around our disks. >> >> Thank you for any answer >> Ondřej Zarevúcky >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> -------- The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, >> colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best >> network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services >> without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience >> hosting pros just a phone call away. >> http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com >> _______________________________________________ >> WiX-users mailing list >> WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> -------- The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, >> colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best >> network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services >> without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience >> hosting pros just a phone call away. >> http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com >> _______________________________________________ >> WiX-users mailing list >> WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users >> >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay > online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business > Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts > Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation > Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business > Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts > Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
