Everyone on this list with the exception of Rob M, Bob A & the rest of the core WiX dev team was a beginner with WiX at one time. However a large number of people (myself included) took it upon themselves to learn about the tools they're trying to use. Most of us would've done that by going through the tutorials, reading the WiX documentation, reading MSDN pages for Windows Installer, looking up blog pages for Windows Installer etc. (see www.google.com) & then actually trying to do things for ourselves by creating installers & testing them. As I've said before on this list would you try to build executables & DLL's in C++ without having any knowledge of CRT/ATL/MFC/.NET (delete where appropriate)?
"General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset" doesn't mean "e-mail here to ask for help on every little issue you get stuck on without trying to figure it out for yourself". Maybe I'm being too harsh on yourself but there's a lot of people posting questions on here which can be answered by a single line reply containing a URL to either the WiX tutorial, WiX documentation or an MSDN page for Windows Installer. What's even worse is some people appear to not even read the links they're directed to & ask another question which would be answered if they took the time to look over the page they've been pointed at. None of us, not even the core WiX dev team get paid for working on WiX or for helping people by replying to queries on this list & yet there are people treating it like a subscription based support service for a commercially bought software package. I guess this is a symptom of the growing popularity of WiX but there's no reason why anyone should be happy with that. Maybe I'm just too used to non-Windows based communities for free software where people will take the time to try & find the solution themselves & seeing discussion forums as a last resort when all else fails not the first place to go when you hit a bump in the road. You're not going to learn anything if we tell you the solution to everything but I get the impression most people asking questions aren't bothered about learning how to fix it themselves, they just want to be handed a solution to get their installers building so they can ship their products, get a pat on the back from the management for all their hard work & cash their pay checks. Great in the short term but when the next release comes along lo & behold the queries start again in earnest. On a side note, a lot of people say "How do I do this in WiX?" when the question should be "Does Windows Installer support this?" WiX is not Windows Installer. Time to take another long rest from replying to list queries I guess. Have fun everyone. 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: Markus Karg [mailto:k...@quipsy.de] Sent: 09 April 2010 13:33 To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Searching for existing files but only once > Any chance you might start thinking for yourself sometime soon? Actually I do not understand why writing this. We are beginners with MSI and WiX and have no clue what is there for free out of the box, and what must be done with special tasks. Possibly there would be something that can prevent actions to run if a property is set? How should we know without asking? We spent two days and did not find something, so we asked that question. If you don't like answering them, why did you answer at all? We know pretty well how to use conditions and all that, we just wanted to know whether there is a trick now mentioned in the manuals, not more. How should we find out that by self-thinking? If this would be possible, this newsgroup would be obsolete. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------ Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
