Why do you want to drive this purely from an MSI? On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 1:10 AM, Timur Faizrakhmanov <aliv...@gmail.com>wrote:
> Hi WiX community, > > > I have a question considering Architectural Design of an Installer rather > than explicit WiX usage. I would like to address this question to expert > Installer developers and MSI guru’s. > > > We would like to have an installer, actually a set of installers, > (preferably pure msi, no exe’s or bootstrappers) that could be initiated > via config.xml file. I.e. configuration file (xml format) would have a set > of elements and attributes that “describe” what and where we would like to > install. For example: InstallPath and a set of features. This will be used > mostly in unattended scenarios. This file is supposed to be in the folder > along with main setup.msi. > > > For now, if I’m not mistaken, the only way I can read XML file and > initialize properties would be the usage of Custom Actions. Our main app is > written entirely on .NET platform, so, I guess, managed CustomAction and > DTF > would be fine. At least I would like to change the INSTALLLOCATION and > some > other properties (Feature install condition). This approach should be able > to update itself using only MajorUpgrade (Bob, thanks for this “syntactic > sugar” with this command, it really makes WiX code simplerJ with updates). > So, when updates come to happen, new msi’s should read configuration file > again for the previous and maybe some changed values (InstallPath could be > changed, set of features could be changed, etc.). > > > So the question goes here. Is this approach is good in terms of MSI Design > Guidelines. Maybe this whole approach, using CA to “tell” MSI what to do, > is > an anti-pattern and should be avoided in Production Development. I’ve > already created a prototype of this approach and already have issues with > property initializations, especially for the Feature conditions. I could > not > have 100% deterministic behavior during initial install and further > upgrades. > > > As an alternate approach I thought of using separate executable that would > parse xml file and launch msi’s with corresponding parameters (INSTALLDIR, > feature selection), by the way, this approach gives 99,999% probability of > successful installations. But still we would like to initiate the process > launching only msi file, and no EXE. That’s why I’m addressing this > question > to WiX community. > > > I guess someone has already encountered this scenario before and has his > thoughts of this. For those who didn’t, the conclusions of this topic it > could help them in future. So I guess this topic would be valuable to > discuss for installer developers. > > > Any advices, ideas and conclusions would be greatly appreciated! > > Thanks in advanced! > > Tim > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Beautiful is writing same markup. Internet Explorer 9 supports > standards for HTML5, CSS3, SVG 1.1, ECMAScript5, and DOM L2 & L3. > Spend less time writing and rewriting code and more time creating great > experiences on the web. Be a part of the beta today > http://p.sf.net/sfu/msIE9-sfdev2dev > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > > -- virtually, Rob Mensching - http://RobMensching.com LLC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Beautiful is writing same markup. Internet Explorer 9 supports standards for HTML5, CSS3, SVG 1.1, ECMAScript5, and DOM L2 & L3. Spend less time writing and rewriting code and more time creating great experiences on the web. Be a part of the beta today http://p.sf.net/sfu/msIE9-sfdev2dev _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
