On 2009/02/25 5:11 PM, Alex Mandel wrote:
Building an msi just adds complication.
It could easily be argued that not using an MSI just adds complication for anyone who works in an environment where MSI-based installs are a requirement ;-)
I also have not seen any open source tools to do it either.
There are some: http://www.installsite.org/pages/en/msi/authoring.htm However, it could be argued that tools used to build the installer for OSGeo4W don't have to be open source, as they are building an installer for a non-open source Operating System.
Because typical installers write to registry using an msi prevents you from running more than one at the same time.
I'm not clear what you are trying to say with that statement?
In terms of security, there's no reason to think an msi is any more secure than an exe
Actually, there is. An MSI is "just a database", and is easily examined. That doesn't hold true for executables. However, it's a bit of a moot point, because most MSI-based installations will install one or more executable files, so even with "nothing malicious" in the MSI, there could still be security risks.
and running msi require that the end user always have the correct windows installer library installed. Since Microsoft no longer supports some older versions of windows, if a Visual Studio tool was used to build the installer there's a chance older(Win2k,WinXP) users would be out of luck.
But that isn't an argument against using an MSI for an installation. MSI-based installs can be created to only apply to specific versions of MS Windows, and can 'fail gracefully' if needed. Even with an MSI that installs on 'all versions of Windows', the installed program(s) may not run, due to differences between MS Windows versions. In other words, it is part of the generic problem of "what OS versions are supported", not a specific problem related to the use of an MSI. -- Dave Patton CIS Canadian Information Systems Victoria, B.C. Degree Confluence Project: Canadian Coordinator Technical Coordinator http://www.confluence.org/ Personal website: Maps, GPS, etc. http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/ _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
