Hi, It's really up to you, but there's a couple of things to consider:
* Would the reference data ever be installed without the main application? * How do customers get hold of your application and the reference data, and relevant updates? * Have you looked at patching? Normally, in your situation I think I would make the reference data a feature in the MSI. However, because of the size, and the fact that this data doesn't change very often, this might not be a good idea - you don't want to force your users to download (if that's how the data is delivered) 1GB of data every quarter. In that situation, you could look at patching. This would allow you to build a patch which conatains only the files you have changed, which is usually the application files. This also covers the situation where only a small change to the reference data has been made. However, patching is pretty non-trivial. Chaining a separate MSI containing the reference data is the other approach (becoming more popular these days with tools like Burn) but you need to think about how new users would get hold of the package with the application + reference data, and how existing customers would get hold of just the application - you could do this by building two packages, perhapsor by building one package with a downloader (which detects that the reference data is up to date, and doesn't download that component). Unlike patching, however, if a small change is made to your reference data, the user would need to download the whole reference data package again, rather than just the relevant files. Hope that helps John On 5 December 2012 12:34, Bull, Thomas <thomas.b...@defensegp.com> wrote: > I am exploring moving a moderate size installer to WiX and I am stumbling > through with some good successes thanks to the active support community out > there. My application has a large amount (~1gb) of reference data that does > not change much from version to version. This data is not required for all > installations, but in the past we have installed it by default through a > custom action that expands archives to the correct location on the > destination machine. Moving forward I would like to put this reference > information into a MSI, but I am not sure if it makes sense to use a separate > MSI and chain it using Burn or create a Feature and package it in my > application's MSI. We release a minor upgrade to our application (not > reference data) about quarterly, with a major upgrade yearly. However our > reference data will typically only have 5% files replaced and even less > added/removed in a given year. > > So, is it better to create a separate MSI for the reference data and chain or > to include it in the main MSI? What is the best practice here? > > Thanks for taking the time as I get my WiX feet wet! > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial > Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support > Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services > Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers > http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
