Last year I heard that Installer Projects were going away and we should be switching to Windows Installer XML. Whatever happened with that?
So you know where I'm coming from, support for TFS-based buil machines is very important to me. I know Installer Projects kinda-sorta work with TFS, but they have issues.
IronRuby uses Wix, but that requires upkeep and scripts. I haven't looked into parrafin or anything like that yet, but the mix of a Parrafin (like) script and WIX would probably work well.
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I'm developing a Visual Studio application with WPF, but right now is the moment where I have to choose my installer.
I need my project to be able to write on the GAC and on registry, but I'm not sure if I should use Visual Studio installer or Wix... I can't find on Google information that says exactly the differences between both of them.
I found that Wix is more complete, but I can't find any article that specifies real differences between one or another...
Can anyone help me to find more specific information or to choose between both of them?
EDIT: Sorry, I specify:
I'm using Visual Studio 2010 professional.
The end product is the same, a windows installer msi.
It's just different how you get there. With the old vdproj there wasn't much other than setting up files to be copied and registry keys as far as I remember. Anything else and you would have to create a custom action in C++ or VBS, not a particularly easy task if you are .net developer.
However with the advent of Wix there are a lot more in-built custom actions which enable you to create a rich installation experience and if you need to create your own custom action you can use .net. Also it is much easier to create a bootstrapper which can install dependencies along with your msi as well as being able to create a front-end in WPF.
As #nvoigt said the old vdproj type is not supported in VS2012 and it also cannot be built by a build server without doing some nasty setup (you have to install VS).
All in all there really should be no question of what to use, Wix is the way forward.
Caveman_Dick wrote:
"Anything else and you would have to create a custom action".
And that in a nutshell is the difference. Visual Studio Deployment Projects heavily abstracts you from the underlying windows installer and seals away a great deal of it's ability. This goes against the very design of Windows Installer which is supposed to be a declarative, transactional programming model.
Take installing a Windows Service as an example? Windows Installer has the ServiceInstall table. VDPROJ fails to expose this so you are off writing brittle custom actions resulting in a less elegant and less robust installer.
WiX on the other hand is a very thin abstraction. It's all about XML XSD elements and attributes that represent the underlying Windows Installer table data. The build process simply transforms the XML to SQL tables. If MSI can do it, WiX can (99%) do it.
VDPROJ was a horrible mistake and Microsoft has finally owned up to it and killed it. Now WiX doesn't have UI designers ( I've written one on CodePlex though) so you might also want to consider InstallShield Limited Edition (FREE).
Using a combination of ISLE and WiX I can get the best of both worlds.
With Setup projects no longer shipped with current versions of Visual Studio, you might want to use Wix. Otherwise, you will have to write it again once you switch to a current version of Visual Studio.
I've got a question about installers.
At my workplace we have a development environment which envelops quite a lot of IDE's and plugins for those IDE's.
I've just started working there and I have yet to set up my development environment. However keeping in mind that they will hire new Juniors within the next couple of months I thought it might be a good idea to create an installer that calls all other installers, essentially making an installation bundle of IDE's.
Now here's the catch. I know it should be possible with visual studio but I can only get my hands on the Express edition, and I doubt they will get a professional edition just for me.
So my question is, how do I create such a bundle installation? I can work in virtually any environment but at work we have Eclipse and at home I've got VS Professional (but no access to the files I need).
Any help is welcome, Rope.
Since you are interest in a free powerful tool the only one I can recommend is Wix, and its new feature called Burn, used to handled installation package bundles. There are payed tools that can help you get this done much faster, but you'll need a little budget for that.
I was wondering if anyone knows how easy it would be to convert an install project created with the standard visual studio 2010 install project to a WIX project.
This install project has a custom actions dll as well. I read about Heat but I'm not sure what it does.
I'd describe the process more as refactoring then converting. For example, the custom actions you are using very well may not be needed. Often times CA's are used to do things that MSI supports natively such as installing a windows service. (Reinventing the wheel.)
I approach situations like this with:
1) Examine the VDPROJ and custom actions for intent.
2) Possibly use Dark to decompile the MSI to wxs files.
3) Reauthor the WiX as cleanly as possible.
I've done this many times so it's 'easy' for me. If you don't have the underlying Windows Installer experience and/or WiX experience, it'll be far more difficult yet also rewarding in terms of building your skillset.
I've not messed with installing software probably since early 2000s but I was wondering what the ideal way was now. I used to use InstallShield but I sorta remember VS.NET having their own install service that could be used?
What I need to be able to do is copy/create files and insert paths/values into config files based on where the install installs the files. Can this be done with VS.NET or do I need a 3rd party tool?
Using Visual Studio 2010 has setup projects, but they are going away in VS 11 (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckh/archive/2011/03/17/visual-studio-setup-projects-vdproj-will-not-ship-with-future-versions-of-vs.aspx).
Wix is an option, but the learning curve is rather steep.
InstallShield is also still an option.
I recommend innosetup
http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
It uses a reasonably easy to learn proprietary script and for me works every time
I've no idea if MS have their own means in VS.NET
Why should one go for Windows Installer XML (WiX) when we have in built .net MSI installer?
It would take me hours to rant about everything I hate about VDPROJ. I won't because in my (expert) opinion it's already settled law that VDPROJ sucks. If your install is so simple that you haven't noticed any problems, then be my guess and stick with it. But if you already find yourself fighting the tool trying to get it to do things it doesn't do, then take my advice and dump it fast for WiX.
10 things I hate about VDPROJ
No MSBuild Support. Sure, you can call devenv from the command
line but it's not as good.
No exposing of the critical concept of
a component. Every file/reg key is a keyfile of it's own component.
No effective way to fully exclude automatic dependency scanning.
Shortcuts are always Advertised
No way to describe a service.
No way to describe many things which leads to overuse of custom
actions.
No way to fine control the scheduling / execution of
custom actions. Too abstracted.
Abstraction is wrong. Deferred
CA's are scheduled with Impersonation which breaks on Vista.
Various limitations lead you down a path of massaging the built MSI
during postbuild to get around all the limiations. Results in a
very poor build automation hacks.
Merge Module directory tables
are authored incorrectly.
100 other things suck that I'm not
remembering right now.
The introduction of WiX tutorial gives the basic idea about WiX advantages comparing to other setup development tools (including VS setup projects):
declarative approach
unrestricted access to Windows
Installer functionality
source code instead of GUI-based
assembly of information
complete integration into application
build processes
possible integration with application
development
support for team development, both
in-house and third-party
free, open source
Hope this helps.
Visual Studio deployment packages can only be built by visual studio. They cannot be built using plain MSBuild command lines, which makes them less than ideal for e.g. build servers.
All the above answers have included most of the annoying features of Visual studio setup projects (.VDPROJ), one thing that most people have missed.
.VDPROJ file format is such that, and if we make a small
change to one single entry it completely rewrites all the entries
within which makes it impossible to merge changes from 2 different
branches.
Some of us don't want to use / can't use the .NET installer.
Some of us don't want to have to install Visual Studio to distribute a program, written in, say, Borland Delphi. WiX and .NET have nothing to do with one another.
WiX provdes a much more complete feature set than the .NET installer.