Visual Studio setups have some pretty severe limitations compared to many other commercial setup programs. Just a few of them: custom actions all run pretty much after the install is done - you can't use them to search the system before install, set the target directory, validate user input etc; there are a limited number of UI dialogs and you can't customize your own; there is a single feature in the setups - no support for multi-feature setups; they use installer classes to install services (despite pre-existing support in MSI files) - most setup people (including the Wix guys) think that's a bad idea; creating patches (msp files) is not easy.
You can put custom actions just about anywhere with MSI, and many installers like Wix and InstallShield come with a library of custom actions so you don't always have to write your own. Wix comes at the right price too. Visual Studio setup project limitations are basically designed to keep setups easy, and perhaps another way of saying that is that they hide you from the complexity of MSI installs. Once you get into Wix, Wise, InstallShield etc you can't avoid needing a good understanding of MSI. http://blogs.msdn.com/windows_installer_team/archive/2006/05/01/587990.a spx http://blogs.msdn.com/windows_installer_team/archive/2006/05/12/595950.a spx List and comparison here: http://www.installsite.org/pages/en/msi/authoring.htm Phil Wilson -----Original Message----- From: Discussion of advanced .NET topics. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve W Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 2:19 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ADVANCED-DOTNET] Commercial Installers for .NET? One issue I seem to have with MS installer built into VS is that for a web app, I don't seem to be able to get the option to create a virtual directory - everything installs under the wwwroot. Do these other installers give the ability to prompt for an alternative file system location and then set the web apps' application path to that ? Or am I missing something in the MS installer ? Thanks Steve -----Original Message----- From: Discussion of advanced .NET topics. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Frans Bouma Sent: 18 May 2006 10:09 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ADVANCED-DOTNET] Commerical Installers for .NET? > Hi, due to problems with the VS Installer projects I need to find a > commercial installer. > What works well with .NET ? You could dig into WiX, which is XML based and MS' own format to write installers. You can also opt for innosetup: http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php which is free and widely used. And ofcourse you can shell out a lot of money for installshield or wise. I'd say: start with innosetup, and go from there. After all: installing software is very basic: unpack files, copy files to destination folder, eventually create regkeys and menu options and that's it. And as every installer nowadays uses the MS installer service, they all basicly work the same under the hood anyway. Frans =================================== This list is hosted by DevelopMentor. http://www.develop.com View archives and manage your subscription(s) at http://discuss.develop.com =================================== This list is hosted by DevelopMentor(r) http://www.develop.com View archives and manage your subscription(s) at http://discuss.develop.com =================================== This list is hosted by DevelopMentor® http://www.develop.com View archives and manage your subscription(s) at http://discuss.develop.com
