Okay the 'product' term seems to be a bit overloaded here, even I have used it in two different meanings.
So the one way we currently support is: ComponentGroup 1 -> MSM 1 -> single feature MSI containing MSM 1 only ComponentGroup 2 -> MSM 2 -> single feature MSI containing MSM 2 only ... The other way is to make a 'kit' installer, using MSM 1 + MSM 2 + ... -> MSI containing all the MSMs (can be single feature or not) - For all upgrades, we do full uninstall and reinstall. - The number of MSMs can be like 50, and you definitely do not want to have them all in the control panel unless you install them separately. - The desired and observed behaviour is that the Windows Installer treats the component groups the same regardless of what MSI they were installed by. Not surprisingly this takes a considerable amount of time to compile. I thought we could speed it up a bit using wixlibs: ComponentGroup 1 -> wixlib 1 -> single feature MSI containing wixlib 1 only ComponentGroup 2 -> wixlib 2 -> single feature MSI containing wixlib 2 only ... or wixlib 1 + wixlib 2 + ... -> single feature MSI containing all the wixlibs directly But I am wondering whether the component groups would be treated the same as in modules, i.e. the versioning would work (since merge modules do have a version). >From your suggestions I understand that we cannot switch to wixlibs. Burn would save the compile time of the 'kit' installer, but is not really an option as it seems to just chain the individual MSIs, resulting in flooded control panel. By the way, where can I find Burn? It does not seem to be in the WiX binaries, and is there any documentation for it? Thanks, Jan -----Original Message----- From: Christopher Painter [mailto:chr...@iswix.com] Sent: 14 March 2013 12:03 To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset.; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Merge modules & wixlib compatibility MSM is a Windows Installer standard, wixlib is not. Otherwise they are similar in function with wixlib being lighter weight and more flexible. But your scenario confuses me. An MSI can install one and only one product. It would be more accurate to say the files for one feature goes in M1 and the files for another feature go in M2. Unless you are really talking about patches, a new MSI is always going to have both M1 and M2. Either you stick with this monolithic design or you look at creating 2 MSI's and using Burn to chain them together. ---------------------------------------- From: "Jan Kucera" <t-j...@microsoft.com> Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 6:29 AM To: "wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net" <wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net> Subject: [WiX-users] Merge modules & wixlib compatibility Hello, I am trying to move from merge modules to wixlibs, but I am not sure whether all the functionality is preserved. Consider the following scenario: - one product goes into the merge module M1 - other product goes into the merge module M2 - a MSI is created containing both M1 and M2 and installed - the first product gets some important fix - new MSI is created just having the fixed M1 Now if I understand correctly, the installer correctly upgrades the M1 install with this MSI. Later when there is a new version of the whole product, it will correctly upgrade both fixed M1 and original M2. That is the case also when the M1 only MSI is installed first. Now does this work even when I switch from modules to wixlibs? Is there overall any reason why would one need to use merge modules instead of wixlib (apart from supporting non-WiX environment)? Thanks! Jan ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_mar _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_mar _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_mar _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
