You might find the bootstrapper in Visual Studio 2008 to be useful. We're using it to deal with the .NET Framework 2.0 prerequisite, and it works fine even on Win XP RTM (untested on Win2K). (.NET 2.0 is the minimum we require because Vista RTM includes .NET 2.0, so prerequisite install is only needed for XP customers.) The bootstrapper can automatically download the framework from Microsoft and install it. After seeing how few Vista customers there are though, I don't really see a good reason to prefer it over .NET Framework 3.5, which I guess comes with Windows 7. As I recall, the big gripe I had with .NET 3.5 was that it was extremely bloated, making the ~20 MB .NET 2.0 install look like nothing.
For the Visual C++ 2008 runtimes, we just use the merge modules. If you have other prereqs, you can add them. If your requirements are much more complex though, I would imagine you'd be better off with something like Burn. As a customer who gets my credit card information swiped at the store, I would hope that the Win2K machines aren't Internet-facing at all. No security patches I would imagine these days... > -----Original Message----- > From: rdinglebham [mailto:rdin...@accelitec.com] > Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2012 19:28 > To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net > Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Bundle fails on WIN2K machine ".exe is not a valid > Win32 application" > > The problem surfaced when I started bundling my MSI packages in order to > take advantage of bootstrapping the perquisites like .NET Framework 2.0 > SP2, C++ run time libraries. We've been careful to build all of our client > adapters in .NET 2.0/VS2008 since WIN2K is still widely used in the retail world > - we have a number of customers that have a mix of XPE and WIN2K in a > single store... So my WiX 3.6 MSI packages work just fine; it's the WiX 3.6 > burn binaries that are embedded into the .EXE that are incapable with > WIN2K. At this point I'm just copying both the bundle EXE and the MSI to my > customer dropboxes. I'm just glad that I wrote all my custom actions in C# > and not > C++! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
