I have never experienced this scenario because we have an automated deployment and smoke test suite that executes immediately after a build. Things that are not tested by our automated smoke test are tested by our QA people who test installers built by our automated build. They uncover anything that got left out that needs to be verified manually.
On the other hand, I have experienced scenarios where files didn't make it into the installer because we were harvesting using heat and the harvested project changed in a way that it still built successfully but a few files were no longer copied to the harvested directory. We unfortunately didn't discover the missing files until *after* we released. That was quite embarrassing! QA did not discover the missing files because of project management structure, we were not testing that part of the product because of the way the project(s) were structured... *sigh*. Anyway, the point is that missing required files are a much bigger problem when you harvest because you expect the correct files to be picked up always. You tend to forget that the automated process that populates your harvested location might change accidentally (just like a human accidentally forgetting to update a .wxs file) and then you are stuck in the same place. The risk never goes away. Edwin G. Castro Software Developer - Staff Digital Channels Fiserv Office: 503-746-0643 Fax: 503-617-0291 www.fiserv.com Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail > -----Original Message----- > From: David Rickard (USA) [mailto:davri...@microsoft.com] > Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 11:27 AM > To: chr...@iswix.com; General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. > Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Best way to invoke Wix from a TFS build workflow? > > Thanks for the advice. > > Though our devs work with the raw built files and our TFS builds clearly > identify build breaks. Installer issues (like someone adding a file to the > solution but forgetting to add it to the installer) would be at risk of going > unnoticed. > > From: Christopher Painter [mailto:chr...@iswix.com] > Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 10:48 AM > To: David Rickard (USA); General discussion for Windows Installer XML > toolset. > Subject: RE: [WiX-users] Best way to invoke Wix from a TFS build workflow? > > Open the solution up and click properties on the merge module project. Go > to the build events tab then type your command into the pre-build event > command line. > > I still wouldn't do it though. This type of dynamic authoring frequently > masks > up stream problems. What should have been a build break will end up being > a runtime break. > > ________________________________ > From: "David Rickard (USA)" > <davri...@microsoft.com<mailto:davri...@microsoft.com>> > Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 12:44 PM > To: > "chr...@deploymentengineering.com<mailto:chrpai@deploymentengineeri > ng.com>" > <chr...@deploymentengineering.com<mailto:chrpai@deploymentengineeri > ng.com>>, "General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset." <wix- > us...@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net>> > Subject: RE: [WiX-users] Best way to invoke Wix from a TFS build workflow? > > Alright. In this case how would you run a program to add all the files in a > given > directory to the MSI? Before we had an EXE that generated a merge module > of files based on a directory. Could this hook in somehow? > > -----Original Message----- > From: Christopher Painter > [mailto:chr...@deploymentengineering.com]<mailto:[mailto:chrpai@deploy > mentengineering.com]> > Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 4:09 PM > To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset.; wix- > us...@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net> > Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Best way to invoke Wix from a TFS build workflow? > > > > > The simplest way is to use Votive to generate a .SLN / .WIXPROJ and then > add the sln configuration | platform to to the build parameters in the build > definition. You shouldn't have to do any customizations in workflow as the > Default Template will work out of the box. Passing a ProductVersion property > takes a little bit more work on the msbuild side ( build parameters and > preprocessor definitions in the wixproj and wixs ) but it doesn't require any > workflow changes. > > ---------------------------------------- > > From: "David Rickard (USA)" > <davri...@microsoft.com<mailto:davri...@microsoft.com>> > > Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 5:11 PM > > To: "wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:wix- > us...@lists.sourceforge.net>" <wix- > us...@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net>> > > Subject: [WiX-users] Best way to invoke Wix from a TFS build workflow? > > > I need to build some MSIs with Wix during our TFS build. Our current TFS > build is using the Windows Workflow XAML files to declare the build logic. > What's the best way to invoke Wix from there? Directly invoking the process > from an activity? Going down to a powershell script and calling it from there? > Are there any custom Wix activities to use? > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- > > All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a > > definitive record of customers, application performance, security > > threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes > > sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense. > > http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2dcopy1 > > _______________________________________________ > > WiX-users mailing list > > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net> > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a > definitive record of customers, application performance, security threats, > fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it. > Business sense. IT sense. Common sense. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2dcopy1 > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a > definitive record of customers, application performance, security threats, > fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it. > Business sense. IT sense. Common sense. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2dcopy1 > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a definitive record of customers, application performance, security threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2dcopy1 _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
