I have an installer implemented with "Packages" which contains the payload and after running some plugins and a post install script it successfully installs the product.
The same package bundle is used for making updates too, as we run it in background with root privileges and it overwrites the current/old installation files.
We now have the requirement to make a lightweight installer having the components (different Packages inside the product) in a web location to be downloaded and installed.
As I know that this is possible in other systems as Windows/InstallShield with "Releases of Web Type", I would like to know if this is possible in OS X. Otherwise, I will have implement it all from scratch (packages management, download, packages versions compare to make selective updates, privileges escalation, etc).
Well, it was long ago and I almost started doing a web installer from scratch but then I found out that the option is in Packages itself. Hope this helps.
It is the "Package Reference" option.
According to the Packages documentation
A Package Reference lets you use a package that is hosted on a web
server or a removable media and to which you may not have a direct
access. This package will not be built during the built phase.
I think that any referenced package will have its own pre-post-scripts so there would be no problem because of the limited options in the Package Reference. But I need to test it.
Related
I have a WPF app that I am planning on deploying with the Windows Application Packaging Project in Visual Studio that makes the MSIX bundle for installations and future updates. The installer automatically installs the app in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps. This is fine until the program needs to cache some data or it needs to modify the appsettings file since the app does not have permission to get to these resources.
Is there a setting I can change in the packaging properties/manifest so it can install somewhere else so I can avoid these problems?
Indeed, only the Windows can write in %ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps when installing the msix package (by design). If your app is writing log files or other data inside the installation folder it will crash.
You need to either update your code to write to %AppData% or, if you don’t have access to the code, use the Package Support Framework to fix it. You can read more about here:
Package Support Framework (aka PSF)
The PSF brings support for API redirection and hooking. Thus, you can fix an app that failed to write a file in the installation folder (this is no longer allowed) and redirects it to a recommended location, or maybe simply update the app’s working directory.
As mentioned above, you cannot write in the install location of an MSIX package - this is by design.
For apps that are no longer under active developer indeed using the Packafe Support Framework is the only way to fix them. However, from what I see you are preparing to launch the app, so you have access to its code.
In this scenario, it is recommended you save all your app settings in the AppData\Roaming folder. For apps deployed as MSIX Windows will automatically redirect it under the Packages folder, but that is handled automatically by the OS, so you don't need to worry about it. More details below.
How to save data under AppData\Roaming instead of AppData\Local\Packages
We made some changes to the installation and updating process of our Windows app recently, and some users are now complaining that Windows sometimes automatically deletes the main application .exe file.
It usually occurs after users update app using built-in web update feature. The feature is implemented using .msi built in Advanced Installer tool.
We are struggling to figure out what is causing this, and haven't found a way to consistently reproduce the issue (though we've seen it happen as well).
Here's what changed with our installation and web updating process:
The main installer for our application is now a standard .msi, which becomes a part of the Windows installation system and is natively manageable by Group Policy and other system features, such as rollback or versions. In previous versions that did not have this problem, our installer was a .exe built with the SetupBuilder tool.
We introduced the redesigned web updater feature inside the app (to update to new versions within the app). It uses the same .msi as the main deliverable as for installation. .msi is downloaded from our server in a form of .exe which is then extracts MSI and starts it. MSI then updates file in our installation. These .exe and .msi is built with Advanced Installer tool which provides such a web update feature to developers. In previous versions that did not have this problem, our web update feature was developed with SetupBuilder tool which provided a custom web update files - .exe web updater that downloads a number of web update files containing patch to our app.
The goal of a transition to the standard .msi installer was to make it easy for our clients to deploy the app in organizations - say, mass deploy using group policies and other similar tools.
Has anyone else experienced a problem like this? Any ideas on how to troubleshoot and try to reproduce?
Theory: Before doing anything else: The first thing I would ask the people who report the problem is if they have re-packaged your older, legacy (non-MSI) setup to be their own MSI file? This can cause a well-known upgrade problem along the lines of what you explain (file missing). Please check first. Tell them to uninstall the existing version and then install the new one - that is the simplest way. Not always enough (some obscure problems possible).
Mismatched component GUIDs could cause missing files after upgrade, as could file version downgrade scenarios and various other technicalities. You could try to install to a new default location on disk to avoid these problems. The reason this can work is very technical and hard to explain tersely. Essentially you de-couple yourself from "the sins of the past". It is generally enough to change the name of the file in question: for example MyApp.exe to MyAppNew.exe or maybe add the major version: MyApp5.exe, but maybe try the folder change first ProgramFiles\MyCompany\MyApp => ProgramFiles\MyCompany\MyApp5.
How do you configure your upgrade? View "Upgrades", what is selected: "Uninstall old version first and then install new version" or "Install new version first and then uninstall old version".
Blog Entry:: Why Windows Installer removes files during a major upgrade if they go backwards in version numbers (might be of help).
Deployment Debugging: For open ended debugging of MSI and deployment problems in general one obviously needs to gather intel and that means logging and system inspection.
Logging: First try to get a proper log file for the systems where this problem occurs. In Advanced Installer you can tick the "Enable verbose logging" in the Install Parameters view to enable verbose logging for all package installations. This adds the MsiLogging property to the compiled MSI and every installation of the MSI will cause a MSI log file with a random name to be created in the TMP folder. View the folder, sort by date and the file should be at the top. Suggest you do this and then tell the users to send you the log files when relevant. Maybe you have this setting enabled already?
Further Logging: There are many ways to enable logging, and you can find a description here: Enable installation logs for MSI installer without any command line arguments. The MsiLogging property is just one possibility.
To log a single MSI setup: http://www.installsite.org/pages/en/msifaq/a/1022.htm.
To enable global logging for all MSI operations on the machine: Please see this FAQ-entry from installsite.org, section "Globally for all setups on a machine" - for the exact procedure.
How to interpret an MSI Log File.
I need to install software on Windows clients that are completely offline. That means they have no Internet access.
An example. Let's say I want to install Paint.Net. I go to a reference machine (with INet) and install Paint.Net with Chocolatey.
choco install paint.net -y
After the install is finished I have the software installed and two artifacts:
The package file "paint.net.nupkg" in %ChocolateyInstall%/lib/paint.net
and
the the installer file "paint.net.4.0.6.install.zip" in %Temp%\chocolatey.
I now put these two files on a USB stick. Then I go to the offline machine, plug in the USB stick and want to install the package.
Is it possible to install the software without modifying the package? I am aware that inside the nupkg file there is a tools/chocolateyInstall.ps1 file with a $url variable defined. But I want to install the package without changing the package content or modifying the URL by hand.
I played around with the parameters --cache and --source but with little to no luck.
I have seen that this kind of question is asked before. But never (to my knowledge) with the intend to run the installer file from the stick too (and not only the package file). So I hope this is not a duplicate.
Caching Downloads - Not Deterministic
While there are ways to set the original nupkg (with the version on it, not the one in the packages directory - use download from left side of package's page on the Chocolatey community package repository) and the cache onto a USB stick somewhere, it's not always deterministic that it will work. You can also override the cache location, so that the folder is somewhere not in TEMP. See choco config, choco config -h and choco config set cacheLocation c:\some\location to do this.
Create Your Own Packages - Better
For packages you need offline, you have the ability to manage your own packages and you can embed software right into the package. This is desired when you want to manage software offline as most things on the community repository are subject to copyright law and distribution rights (why they don't simply have the software they represent embedded).
Creating and working with your own packages is very secure, reliable, and repeatable (and can be completely offline), but it does tend to take up time. If you are doing this for yourself, then it could override any time-savings you get as a consumer using Chocolatey and the community repository.
Internalized Packages - Best
The best thing you can do here is a process called internalizing, where you download and extract the package, download all of the resources and embed them in the package (or put them somewhere local/UNC share), edit the scripts to use those embedded/local resources and recompile the package.
This allows you to take advantage of existing package logic without the issue of the internet.
For more details see Recompiling Packages and Package Internalizer - Automatically Recompile Packages.
NOTE: As a side note, we are thinking of offering the ability to auto recompile with Chocolatey Pro edition and not just the Business edition.
Organization Use of Chocolatey
Most organizations using Chocolatey are doing some combination of creating packages and recompiling packages, because they need absolute trust and control over those packages when being used in production scenarios.
I need to create a release / install package. There is a drop down box in VS that lets me create a release version for the project. So I hit the publish button and choose the CD option. Sure enough it publishes the a setup I need. I installed the application everything goes fine though I have no idea where on the target machine where the application ended up??? Trouble is my application has signed XML file that stores the public keys my application uses to enable features depending on what a customer is licensed to do. I would like the key file to be part of the package that is installed so I don't have to send it seperately. I have to send the license file but I was hoping to avoid confusion by only requiring the user to only have copy the license file to the local directory. Which brings up another question were is application installed I did a search and found nothing with my application name???? But thereis an icon onthe star menu and the applicaton seems to run just file
You probably deployed your application as a "ClickOnce" Application. It installs the program to an obfuscated folder in your users folder. On Windows 7 it winds up in something like "c:\users\username\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0\somefoldername\somefoldername". If you need more control of the installation, the free InstallSheild LE that comes free with VS2010 is not a bad choice. It will let you add additional files as well.
Our product has several products that customer can install created as separate installation packages (MSI).
We have a requirement to have single package for the installation that will:
Show one UI with progress
Allow user to choose which features/packages to install
Have ability to constrain one feature to another (e.g removing or adding effect other)
Support single elevation (UAC)
nice to have ability to auto update (not must)
support command line + silent installation
the package should be built out of the isolated installations (chain them)
raise error / messages for missing prerequisites
Support patches over time and major upgrades
Today we do almost all of the above using MSI with nested installations which is bad practice and we face too many issues in our solution.
i know that there are several bootstrappers out there (m$ generic bootstrapper which i think is not good, BURN is the WIX version which is not mature enough)
Do you know of other? that work and tested already ?
What is the best method to do (without unification of the MSI into a single MSI)
dotNetInstaller looks promising. I was experimenting with it to install java as a prerequisite. It comes with a GUI editor so you don't have to sort out the xml to create a project. The config file is in xml, and the InstallerLinker can be run from the command line. It could be integrated with a build server, though some msbuild tasks would be nice.
project home:
http://dotnetinstaller.codeplex.com/
tutorial:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/install/dotNetInstaller.aspx
Create an InstallShield InstallScript package. Use the InstallScript package kick off the .MSIs with "-qn" one by one. I do this and am successful with it. I believe it meets your all the requirements you listed.
Until Wix's Burn is ready we really don't have much of a choice when it comes to bootstrappers.
If you are using InstallShield as your msi designer, one thing you could try is making an InstallScript project that contains all the different msi packages. You could then silently install only the desired packages. InstallShield is pretty expensive though, so if you don't already have it, you'll probably have to end up rolling your own bootstrapper.