Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
2. The files are installed in the order specified by the Sequence column. The WiX toolset manages the Sequence column for you because the order should not matter. The control you get is that you can control the order of groups of files because the Media element specify the order of each group. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 11:46 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? 2. The cabinet is only opened once. That's why the files have to be sequenced perfectly because the Windows Installer will only read through the File table sequentially and any files out of order will get skipped. Cabinet files are optimized for front to back reading not random access. So does WiX sequence the files inside cabinets according to the Sequence column of the File table? Do I need to do anything special about that when I'm building install with WiX? I'm trying to layout cabinets and uncompressed files in the order they are called, but do I need to take special care of files inside cabinets, or WiX does it automatically? 1. Anti-virus software can cripple both the install time *and* the build time. For build machines, you can usually tell the software to ignore the build directories and the temp directory. For end user machines... Yes, I have anti virus, and can't switch it off - it policy. But when I look at CPU usage, it seems that anti-virus is only active for part of the link process. Rob Mensching-2 wrote: 1. Anti-virus software can cripple both the install time *and* the build time. For build machines, you can usually tell the software to ignore the build directories and the temp directory. For end user machines... sigh/ 2. The cabinet is only opened once. That's why the files have to be sequenced perfectly because the Windows Installer will only read through the File table sequentially and any files out of order will get skipped. Cabinet files are optimized for front to back reading not random access. 3. There is a cost of extracting embedded cabinets out of the MSI. 4. There is some sweet spot for the size of cabinet files. I remember hearing the Visual Studio guys playing with their cabinet composition trying to find the ideal size of the cabinets for decompression. I don't remember the results, but it seemed like the ideal size of a cabinet was no larger than 200 MB with no more than a certain number of files... sorry, I don't remember more details. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 5:12 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? It may be a stupid question, but do you have any anti-virus software running? If so, that can completely cripple performance of an installation, and since you indicate that it is the File copying phase I would be interested to see what the difference is versus installing on a non-protected system. Rob M, can you (or anyone else with Microsoft Installer knowledge, or a communication channel to the developers) confirm if the cab files embedded in the installation are extracted from the MSI then opened once, or if the cab file is reopened for each file that is extracted from it. If it is the latter, it seems to me that multiple smaller cab files could provide significantly better performance than one large one if on access anti-virus scanning is enabled. Regards, Richard -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 4:47 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? My slow speed comes from the File copying phase. I.e. all steps are running quite fast, but when I see Copying Files on a progress dialog it's where it takes most of the time. * C O N F I D E N T I A L I T Y N O T I C E * --- The content of this e-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received this communication in error, be aware that forwarding it, copying it, or in any way disclosing its content to any other person, is strictly prohibited. Peek Traffic Corporation is neither liable for the contents, nor for the proper, complete and timely transmission of (the information contained in) this communication. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the author by replying to this e-mail immediately and delete the material from any computer. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
[sorry, accidentally hit ctrl+enter] 1. There is only a portion of light.exe that does major file IO. If you cannot get an exception for some of your build drives with your antivirus software then you are going to be suffering with performance issues there. Seriously, I have seen 300% improvement in build times when people told their anti-virus programs to ignore the TEMP drive and build drive (YMMV depending on the anti-virus software you use). -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rob Mensching Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 8:52 AM To: Igor Maslov; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? 2. The files are installed in the order specified by the Sequence column. The WiX toolset manages the Sequence column for you because the order should not matter. The control you get is that you can control the order of groups of files because the Media element specify the order of each group. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 11:46 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? 2. The cabinet is only opened once. That's why the files have to be sequenced perfectly because the Windows Installer will only read through the File table sequentially and any files out of order will get skipped. Cabinet files are optimized for front to back reading not random access. So does WiX sequence the files inside cabinets according to the Sequence column of the File table? Do I need to do anything special about that when I'm building install with WiX? I'm trying to layout cabinets and uncompressed files in the order they are called, but do I need to take special care of files inside cabinets, or WiX does it automatically? 1. Anti-virus software can cripple both the install time *and* the build time. For build machines, you can usually tell the software to ignore the build directories and the temp directory. For end user machines... Yes, I have anti virus, and can't switch it off - it policy. But when I look at CPU usage, it seems that anti-virus is only active for part of the link process. Rob Mensching-2 wrote: 1. Anti-virus software can cripple both the install time *and* the build time. For build machines, you can usually tell the software to ignore the build directories and the temp directory. For end user machines... sigh/ 2. The cabinet is only opened once. That's why the files have to be sequenced perfectly because the Windows Installer will only read through the File table sequentially and any files out of order will get skipped. Cabinet files are optimized for front to back reading not random access. 3. There is a cost of extracting embedded cabinets out of the MSI. 4. There is some sweet spot for the size of cabinet files. I remember hearing the Visual Studio guys playing with their cabinet composition trying to find the ideal size of the cabinets for decompression. I don't remember the results, but it seemed like the ideal size of a cabinet was no larger than 200 MB with no more than a certain number of files... sorry, I don't remember more details. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 5:12 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? It may be a stupid question, but do you have any anti-virus software running? If so, that can completely cripple performance of an installation, and since you indicate that it is the File copying phase I would be interested to see what the difference is versus installing on a non-protected system. Rob M, can you (or anyone else with Microsoft Installer knowledge, or a communication channel to the developers) confirm if the cab files embedded in the installation are extracted from the MSI then opened once, or if the cab file is reopened for each file that is extracted from it. If it is the latter, it seems to me that multiple smaller cab files could provide significantly better performance than one large one if on access anti-virus scanning is enabled. Regards, Richard -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 4:47 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? My slow speed comes from the File copying phase. I.e. all steps are running quite fast, but when I see Copying Files on a progress dialog it's where it takes most of the time. * C O N F I D E N T I A L I T Y N O T I C E * --- The content of this e-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
2. 15 minutes to copy 3-4 GB isn't bad too. Remember, the WiX toolset is going to lay out your full DVD image in the way that the Windows Installer expects to see it. Compression obviously takes more processing. Also, with file IO much of the time will be counted against the operating system since so much time is going to be spent just pushing IO around at the lower levels of the operating system. Light.exe is actually doing very little work. On another thread, you mentioned you had a virus checker turned on that can actually greatly affect the performance. Also, if the majority of your cabinets are the same, have you used the cabinet cache feature in the WiX toolset? The cabinet cache checks to see that if a cabinet is already built it doesn't get created again. If you haven't looked at this you really should (assuming you have some similar cabinets). Finally, at a certain level, you're pushing (3 to 4) * N GB of data around in circles. That simply takes time. The only thing you can do is try to minimize the number of times you touch the files. A more advanced series of steps could be to generate a .wixout, then use torch.exe to generate the transforms then build the .wixout into final .MSI packages. That might not work out for the cases where files differ. 3. Good, good, glad someone(s) here was able to help (wasn't me grin/). 4. Indeed. However, I'm used to fighting with QA where they argue for a robust install and I argue for a fast install. Seems your QA team is on the other side this time. smile/ -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 11:13 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? 2. Candle is working fast enough. It's light which is slow. I switched off ICE validations (-sval). It helped a bit, but not drammatically. Linking 3-4 GB install takes 15 min if I don't compress data, and about 30-40 if I do compress data. About 70% percent of the time I see that light takes only 3-4% of CPU. Light times aren't that bad when I do a single language. The problem for me starts when I do multilanguage install. With multiple languages my approach maybe not optimal, I know I could edit MSI tables very fast. But this is what I found I could do with with Wix: 1. I create full install for neutral and each laguage. 2. Compute transforms between each language 3. Megre transforms into the base MSI In most setups, all the files that are installed are exactly the same for different languages. Only installer dialogs differ. In other installs, some installed files differ, but majority is the same. Still looks like I have to create the full install, then compute transforms. So , if a build for one language completes in 30-40 min, then 5 languages + 1 neutral will take 3 -4 hours. Not so nice anymore :) Yes, I can write my program to edit tables, to enter strings there, but in case when not all files are language netral editing strings is not enough. Maybe there is a better approach than one that I used. I'd really appreciate help here. PS. Building full installs for each language seems like a robust and simple approach, if only light were 4-5 times faster. 3. Intially speed was 300% up from my custom solution, but it seems I was able to bring it down to more acceptable level. Thanks for help from this forum. Reducing number of components and laying out data on DVD - gives the biggest boost. 4. Yes, but sometimes some of trade offs just aren't acceptable - go, argue with QA :) Thanks, Igor Rob Mensching-2 wrote: 1. Agreed. I'm working on a more advanced chainer for the WiX toolset to hopefully ease a lot of this pain. Just doesn't exist today. 2. What was taking the majority of the build time? Were you batching up your compiles (passing multiple .wxs files to candle.exe)? Do you have shared cabinets, if so did you use the cabinet cache? If you can provide some data about what is slow in the build times then there may be things that we can do to help (including potentially improving the WiX toolset). 3. The Windows Installer does incur a bit of overhead because it tries harder for a robust install than a fast install. Chances that the user will end up in a hosed state are far less with the Windows Installer (assuming no poor CustomActions). The robust comes with some cost (like building the script for rollback). 4. Tradeoffs? Isn't this the way life works? smile/ -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 3:06 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Yes, I'm asking myself whether it was a wise decision to move to MSI. It's not an internal install
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
Couldn't one set the environment variable WIX_TEMP to somewhere in the build area therefore only have to exclude one area from AV on-demand access? I would personally be wary of excluding the entire TEMP directory, whether it be on the user profile or the build machine's Windows directory unless the build machine is used for nothing else at all in which case why would AV be necessary in the first place on it? Cheers, Palbinder Sandher Software Deployment and IT Administrator T: +44 (0) 141 945 8500 F: +44 (0) 141 945 8501 http://www.iesve.com **Design, Simulate + Innovate with the Virtual Environment** Integrated Environmental Solutions Limited. Registered in Scotland No. SC151456 Registered Office - Helix Building, West Of Scotland Science Park, Glasgow G20 0SP Email Disclaimer -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rob Mensching Sent: 29 May 2007 16:55 To: Rob Mensching; Igor Maslov; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? [sorry, accidentally hit ctrl+enter] 1. There is only a portion of light.exe that does major file IO. If you cannot get an exception for some of your build drives with your antivirus software then you are going to be suffering with performance issues there. Seriously, I have seen 300% improvement in build times when people told their anti-virus programs to ignore the TEMP drive and build drive (YMMV depending on the anti-virus software you use). -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rob Mensching Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 8:52 AM To: Igor Maslov; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? 2. The files are installed in the order specified by the Sequence column. The WiX toolset manages the Sequence column for you because the order should not matter. The control you get is that you can control the order of groups of files because the Media element specify the order of each group. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 11:46 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? 2. The cabinet is only opened once. That's why the files have to be sequenced perfectly because the Windows Installer will only read through the File table sequentially and any files out of order will get skipped. Cabinet files are optimized for front to back reading not random access. So does WiX sequence the files inside cabinets according to the Sequence column of the File table? Do I need to do anything special about that when I'm building install with WiX? I'm trying to layout cabinets and uncompressed files in the order they are called, but do I need to take special care of files inside cabinets, or WiX does it automatically? 1. Anti-virus software can cripple both the install time *and* the build time. For build machines, you can usually tell the software to ignore the build directories and the temp directory. For end user machines... Yes, I have anti virus, and can't switch it off - it policy. But when I look at CPU usage, it seems that anti-virus is only active for part of the link process. Rob Mensching-2 wrote: 1. Anti-virus software can cripple both the install time *and* the build time. For build machines, you can usually tell the software to ignore the build directories and the temp directory. For end user machines... sigh/ 2. The cabinet is only opened once. That's why the files have to be sequenced perfectly because the Windows Installer will only read through the File table sequentially and any files out of order will get skipped. Cabinet files are optimized for front to back reading not random access. 3. There is a cost of extracting embedded cabinets out of the MSI. 4. There is some sweet spot for the size of cabinet files. I remember hearing the Visual Studio guys playing with their cabinet composition trying to find the ideal size of the cabinets for decompression. I don't remember the results, but it seemed like the ideal size of a cabinet was no larger than 200 MB with no more than a certain number of files... sorry, I don't remember more details. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 5:12 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? It may be a stupid question, but do you have any anti-virus software running? If so, that can completely cripple performance of an installation, and since you indicate that it is the File copying phase I would be interested to see what the difference is versus installing on a non-protected system. Rob M, can you (or anyone else with Microsoft
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
Yes, when I say temp directory, I mean wherever you have your temp directory pointing. WIX_TEMP is a great way to use a custom temp location. -Original Message- From: Pally Sandher [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 9:30 AM To: Rob Mensching; Igor Maslov Cc: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: RE: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Couldn't one set the environment variable WIX_TEMP to somewhere in the build area therefore only have to exclude one area from AV on-demand access? I would personally be wary of excluding the entire TEMP directory, whether it be on the user profile or the build machine's Windows directory unless the build machine is used for nothing else at all in which case why would AV be necessary in the first place on it? Cheers, Palbinder Sandher Software Deployment and IT Administrator T: +44 (0) 141 945 8500 F: +44 (0) 141 945 8501 http://www.iesve.com **Design, Simulate + Innovate with the Virtual Environment** Integrated Environmental Solutions Limited. Registered in Scotland No. SC151456 Registered Office - Helix Building, West Of Scotland Science Park, Glasgow G20 0SP Email Disclaimer -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rob Mensching Sent: 29 May 2007 16:55 To: Rob Mensching; Igor Maslov; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? [sorry, accidentally hit ctrl+enter] 1. There is only a portion of light.exe that does major file IO. If you cannot get an exception for some of your build drives with your antivirus software then you are going to be suffering with performance issues there. Seriously, I have seen 300% improvement in build times when people told their anti-virus programs to ignore the TEMP drive and build drive (YMMV depending on the anti-virus software you use). -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rob Mensching Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 8:52 AM To: Igor Maslov; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? 2. The files are installed in the order specified by the Sequence column. The WiX toolset manages the Sequence column for you because the order should not matter. The control you get is that you can control the order of groups of files because the Media element specify the order of each group. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 11:46 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? 2. The cabinet is only opened once. That's why the files have to be sequenced perfectly because the Windows Installer will only read through the File table sequentially and any files out of order will get skipped. Cabinet files are optimized for front to back reading not random access. So does WiX sequence the files inside cabinets according to the Sequence column of the File table? Do I need to do anything special about that when I'm building install with WiX? I'm trying to layout cabinets and uncompressed files in the order they are called, but do I need to take special care of files inside cabinets, or WiX does it automatically? 1. Anti-virus software can cripple both the install time *and* the build time. For build machines, you can usually tell the software to ignore the build directories and the temp directory. For end user machines... Yes, I have anti virus, and can't switch it off - it policy. But when I look at CPU usage, it seems that anti-virus is only active for part of the link process. Rob Mensching-2 wrote: 1. Anti-virus software can cripple both the install time *and* the build time. For build machines, you can usually tell the software to ignore the build directories and the temp directory. For end user machines... sigh/ 2. The cabinet is only opened once. That's why the files have to be sequenced perfectly because the Windows Installer will only read through the File table sequentially and any files out of order will get skipped. Cabinet files are optimized for front to back reading not random access. 3. There is a cost of extracting embedded cabinets out of the MSI. 4. There is some sweet spot for the size of cabinet files. I remember hearing the Visual Studio guys playing with their cabinet composition trying to find the ideal size of the cabinets for decompression. I don't remember the results, but it seemed like the ideal size of a cabinet was no larger than 200 MB with no more than a certain number of files... sorry, I don't remember more details. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 5:12 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
It may be a stupid question, but do you have any anti-virus software running? If so, that can completely cripple performance of an installation, and since you indicate that it is the File copying phase I would be interested to see what the difference is versus installing on a non-protected system. Rob M, can you (or anyone else with Microsoft Installer knowledge, or a communication channel to the developers) confirm if the cab files embedded in the installation are extracted from the MSI then opened once, or if the cab file is reopened for each file that is extracted from it. If it is the latter, it seems to me that multiple smaller cab files could provide significantly better performance than one large one if on access anti-virus scanning is enabled. Regards, Richard -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 4:47 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? My slow speed comes from the File copying phase. I.e. all steps are running quite fast, but when I see Copying Files on a progress dialog it's where it takes most of the time. * C O N F I D E N T I A L I T Y N O T I C E * --- The content of this e-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received this communication in error, be aware that forwarding it, copying it, or in any way disclosing its content to any other person, is strictly prohibited. Peek Traffic Corporation is neither liable for the contents, nor for the proper, complete and timely transmission of (the information contained in) this communication. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the author by replying to this e-mail immediately and delete the material from any computer. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
Can it be that creating the system restore point takes (extra) time? At least that is what I see if I run filemon during an install... -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: vrijdag 25 mei 2007 14:12 To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? It may be a stupid question, but do you have any anti-virus software running? If so, that can completely cripple performance of an installation, and since you indicate that it is the File copying phase I would be interested to see what the difference is versus installing on a non-protected system. Rob M, can you (or anyone else with Microsoft Installer knowledge, or a communication channel to the developers) confirm if the cab files embedded in the installation are extracted from the MSI then opened once, or if the cab file is reopened for each file that is extracted from it. If it is the latter, it seems to me that multiple smaller cab files could provide significantly better performance than one large one if on access anti-virus scanning is enabled. Regards, Richard -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 4:47 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? My slow speed comes from the File copying phase. I.e. all steps are running quite fast, but when I see Copying Files on a progress dialog it's where it takes most of the time. * C O N F I D E N T I A L I T Y N O T I C E * --- The content of this e-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received this communication in error, be aware that forwarding it, copying it, or in any way disclosing its content to any other person, is strictly prohibited. Peek Traffic Corporation is neither liable for the contents, nor for the proper, complete and timely transmission of (the information contained in) this communication. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the author by replying to this e-mail immediately and delete the material from any computer. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users This e-mail and any attachment is for authorised use by the intended recipient(s) only. It may contain proprietary material, confidential information and/or be subject to legal privilege. It should not be copied, disclosed to, retained or used by, any other party. If you are not an intended recipient then please promptly delete this e-mail and any attachment and all copies and inform the sender. Thank you. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
1. Agreed. I'm working on a more advanced chainer for the WiX toolset to hopefully ease a lot of this pain. Just doesn't exist today. 2. What was taking the majority of the build time? Were you batching up your compiles (passing multiple .wxs files to candle.exe)? Do you have shared cabinets, if so did you use the cabinet cache? If you can provide some data about what is slow in the build times then there may be things that we can do to help (including potentially improving the WiX toolset). 3. The Windows Installer does incur a bit of overhead because it tries harder for a robust install than a fast install. Chances that the user will end up in a hosed state are far less with the Windows Installer (assuming no poor CustomActions). The robust comes with some cost (like building the script for rollback). 4. Tradeoffs? Isn't this the way life works? smile/ -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 3:06 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Yes, I'm asking myself whether it was a wise decision to move to MSI. It's not an internal install, it's retail product. We had our custom program in C++ and custom upgrade solution. It was working fine. Now problems I'm fasing with MSI and WiX: 1. This probably comes from my insufficient knowdge of these technologies, but each feature takes 3-4 times more time to implement than if I were writing it, for example, in C I might need to launch third party installs, under the same GUI umbrella, but I can't launch another Windows Installer package - so I need a complex bootstraper with GUI. 2. WiX build times, (mostly light.exe) are very big. To make multilanguage installs I have to build full installation for each language, and it may take a lot of time if we are taking about 10 languages, for example. 3. Install times are bigger. Yes, there are many things that are coming for free, when I use Windows Installer and WiX, but there are so many trade offs as well. Matthew Janulewicz-2 wrote: At the risk of sounding anti-wix (I'm very pro-wix!) you might ask yourself if you need an installer at all. If you're not doing any kind of upgrades, uninstalls, etc., and everything is content... Why not just a DVD with a simple batch file that copies everything and creates shortcut(s)? It can easily be done and in the case of something so big, there is some overhead with any installer. It doesn't seem like this case warrants the sophistication inherent in an .msi. I've worked in shops where all our installations were internal, and for content we just pulled the goods right out of our source control tool. It is a different kind of file copy, but a file copy none the less. We saved a lot of time by not having to archive/compress huge files, etc. -Matt -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 2:16 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Thanks, That's exactly kind of info I needed. 1. Seems that -sh is a solution for me. I don't use Windows Installer for upgrades. It's always a full install. 2. I generate single WiX file with all source files listed there. All I need is to lay out files on dvd in the same order as they are listed in the wix source file? If I compress all files into a single cab, are they in the same order as in Sequence table? In this case I'm good? Igor Mike Dimmick-2 wrote: The more components there are, the more checking has to be done (of KeyPaths) to determine what needs to be copied. You could potentially increase the number of files per component, but be aware that: - a component is only installed if its KeyPath is determined to be out-of-date (older file version, mismatched hash) - all files in a component are installed to the same directory - there are problems with adding and removing files from a component WiX always generates hashes for unversioned files, unless the -sh switch is specified. However, if you do specify -sh, it also doesn't extract the version number, making the feature useless. There is no other way to override the hashing. This costs you time when building the MSI - because the files going into the package must be hashed - and at install time, because the existing file must be hashed. If you're installing large files this process may take a lot of time since it has to read the whole currently-installed file to decide whether to overwrite it. Whether this is good or bad depends on the relative speed of the source and destination media and whether they can be run in parallel. I'd always assumed that the creation timestamp was taken into consideration for an unversioned file, but re-reading the SDK's
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
1. Anti-virus software can cripple both the install time *and* the build time. For build machines, you can usually tell the software to ignore the build directories and the temp directory. For end user machines... sigh/ 2. The cabinet is only opened once. That's why the files have to be sequenced perfectly because the Windows Installer will only read through the File table sequentially and any files out of order will get skipped. Cabinet files are optimized for front to back reading not random access. 3. There is a cost of extracting embedded cabinets out of the MSI. 4. There is some sweet spot for the size of cabinet files. I remember hearing the Visual Studio guys playing with their cabinet composition trying to find the ideal size of the cabinets for decompression. I don't remember the results, but it seemed like the ideal size of a cabinet was no larger than 200 MB with no more than a certain number of files... sorry, I don't remember more details. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 5:12 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? It may be a stupid question, but do you have any anti-virus software running? If so, that can completely cripple performance of an installation, and since you indicate that it is the File copying phase I would be interested to see what the difference is versus installing on a non-protected system. Rob M, can you (or anyone else with Microsoft Installer knowledge, or a communication channel to the developers) confirm if the cab files embedded in the installation are extracted from the MSI then opened once, or if the cab file is reopened for each file that is extracted from it. If it is the latter, it seems to me that multiple smaller cab files could provide significantly better performance than one large one if on access anti-virus scanning is enabled. Regards, Richard -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 4:47 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? My slow speed comes from the File copying phase. I.e. all steps are running quite fast, but when I see Copying Files on a progress dialog it's where it takes most of the time. * C O N F I D E N T I A L I T Y N O T I C E * --- The content of this e-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received this communication in error, be aware that forwarding it, copying it, or in any way disclosing its content to any other person, is strictly prohibited. Peek Traffic Corporation is neither liable for the contents, nor for the proper, complete and timely transmission of (the information contained in) this communication. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the author by replying to this e-mail immediately and delete the material from any computer. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
System restore is a huge cost for installs through Windows Installer. I turn off System Restore on all my machines because things install faster and I just don't trust it. smile/ -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Schrieken, Rene Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 6:07 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Can it be that creating the system restore point takes (extra) time? At least that is what I see if I run filemon during an install... - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
2. Candle is working fast enough. It's light which is slow. I switched off ICE validations (-sval). It helped a bit, but not drammatically. Linking 3-4 GB install takes 15 min if I don't compress data, and about 30-40 if I do compress data. About 70% percent of the time I see that light takes only 3-4% of CPU. Light times aren't that bad when I do a single language. The problem for me starts when I do multilanguage install. With multiple languages my approach maybe not optimal, I know I could edit MSI tables very fast. But this is what I found I could do with with Wix: 1. I create full install for neutral and each laguage. 2. Compute transforms between each language 3. Megre transforms into the base MSI In most setups, all the files that are installed are exactly the same for different languages. Only installer dialogs differ. In other installs, some installed files differ, but majority is the same. Still looks like I have to create the full install, then compute transforms. So , if a build for one language completes in 30-40 min, then 5 languages + 1 neutral will take 3 -4 hours. Not so nice anymore :) Yes, I can write my program to edit tables, to enter strings there, but in case when not all files are language netral editing strings is not enough. Maybe there is a better approach than one that I used. I'd really appreciate help here. PS. Building full installs for each language seems like a robust and simple approach, if only light were 4-5 times faster. 3. Intially speed was 300% up from my custom solution, but it seems I was able to bring it down to more acceptable level. Thanks for help from this forum. Reducing number of components and laying out data on DVD - gives the biggest boost. 4. Yes, but sometimes some of trade offs just aren't acceptable - go, argue with QA :) Thanks, Igor Rob Mensching-2 wrote: 1. Agreed. I'm working on a more advanced chainer for the WiX toolset to hopefully ease a lot of this pain. Just doesn't exist today. 2. What was taking the majority of the build time? Were you batching up your compiles (passing multiple .wxs files to candle.exe)? Do you have shared cabinets, if so did you use the cabinet cache? If you can provide some data about what is slow in the build times then there may be things that we can do to help (including potentially improving the WiX toolset). 3. The Windows Installer does incur a bit of overhead because it tries harder for a robust install than a fast install. Chances that the user will end up in a hosed state are far less with the Windows Installer (assuming no poor CustomActions). The robust comes with some cost (like building the script for rollback). 4. Tradeoffs? Isn't this the way life works? smile/ -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 3:06 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Yes, I'm asking myself whether it was a wise decision to move to MSI. It's not an internal install, it's retail product. We had our custom program in C++ and custom upgrade solution. It was working fine. Now problems I'm fasing with MSI and WiX: 1. This probably comes from my insufficient knowdge of these technologies, but each feature takes 3-4 times more time to implement than if I were writing it, for example, in C I might need to launch third party installs, under the same GUI umbrella, but I can't launch another Windows Installer package - so I need a complex bootstraper with GUI. 2. WiX build times, (mostly light.exe) are very big. To make multilanguage installs I have to build full installation for each language, and it may take a lot of time if we are taking about 10 languages, for example. 3. Install times are bigger. Yes, there are many things that are coming for free, when I use Windows Installer and WiX, but there are so many trade offs as well. Matthew Janulewicz-2 wrote: At the risk of sounding anti-wix (I'm very pro-wix!) you might ask yourself if you need an installer at all. If you're not doing any kind of upgrades, uninstalls, etc., and everything is content... Why not just a DVD with a simple batch file that copies everything and creates shortcut(s)? It can easily be done and in the case of something so big, there is some overhead with any installer. It doesn't seem like this case warrants the sophistication inherent in an .msi. I've worked in shops where all our installations were internal, and for content we just pulled the goods right out of our source control tool. It is a different kind of file copy, but a file copy none the less. We saved a lot of time by not having to archive/compress huge files, etc. -Matt -Original Message- From
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
2. The cabinet is only opened once. That's why the files have to be sequenced perfectly because the Windows Installer will only read through the File table sequentially and any files out of order will get skipped. Cabinet files are optimized for front to back reading not random access. So does WiX sequence the files inside cabinets according to the Sequence column of the File table? Do I need to do anything special about that when I'm building install with WiX? I'm trying to layout cabinets and uncompressed files in the order they are called, but do I need to take special care of files inside cabinets, or WiX does it automatically? 1. Anti-virus software can cripple both the install time *and* the build time. For build machines, you can usually tell the software to ignore the build directories and the temp directory. For end user machines... Yes, I have anti virus, and can't switch it off - it policy. But when I look at CPU usage, it seems that anti-virus is only active for part of the link process. Rob Mensching-2 wrote: 1. Anti-virus software can cripple both the install time *and* the build time. For build machines, you can usually tell the software to ignore the build directories and the temp directory. For end user machines... sigh/ 2. The cabinet is only opened once. That's why the files have to be sequenced perfectly because the Windows Installer will only read through the File table sequentially and any files out of order will get skipped. Cabinet files are optimized for front to back reading not random access. 3. There is a cost of extracting embedded cabinets out of the MSI. 4. There is some sweet spot for the size of cabinet files. I remember hearing the Visual Studio guys playing with their cabinet composition trying to find the ideal size of the cabinets for decompression. I don't remember the results, but it seemed like the ideal size of a cabinet was no larger than 200 MB with no more than a certain number of files... sorry, I don't remember more details. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 5:12 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? It may be a stupid question, but do you have any anti-virus software running? If so, that can completely cripple performance of an installation, and since you indicate that it is the File copying phase I would be interested to see what the difference is versus installing on a non-protected system. Rob M, can you (or anyone else with Microsoft Installer knowledge, or a communication channel to the developers) confirm if the cab files embedded in the installation are extracted from the MSI then opened once, or if the cab file is reopened for each file that is extracted from it. If it is the latter, it seems to me that multiple smaller cab files could provide significantly better performance than one large one if on access anti-virus scanning is enabled. Regards, Richard -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 4:47 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? My slow speed comes from the File copying phase. I.e. all steps are running quite fast, but when I see Copying Files on a progress dialog it's where it takes most of the time. * C O N F I D E N T I A L I T Y N O T I C E * --- The content of this e-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received this communication in error, be aware that forwarding it, copying it, or in any way disclosing its content to any other person, is strictly prohibited. Peek Traffic Corporation is neither liable for the contents, nor for the proper, complete and timely transmission of (the information contained in) this communication. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the author by replying to this e-mail immediately and delete the material from any computer. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
Hello everybody, Thank you very much for your advices. I tried several options but an issue still remains. I was wondering if changing the way I organize components and media can affect install speed. What will perform faster: 1. Having 1 component per file, or putting large number of files in a single component 2. Providing I install from DVD what is faster : uncompressed files or cab . Note that big chunk of input files is already compressed. 3. Is there any overhead like CRC computation, or anything like performed at File Copy stage that I could switch off. Thank you , Igor Igor Maslov wrote: This is probably more Windows Installer question than a WiX specific. I have an install with abot 3 GB of files. All it does is copying files and creating shortcuts. MSI file has tranforms for several languages, this localization affects only installer GUI, set of files is language neutral and it's stored in separate cab files not embedded in MSI. The speed of the installation phase is very slow. At the beginning of the installation, just before copying files it sits there for 5 minutes. I wonder if there are any properties or settings I could use to improve speed of installation (and uninstall) Thank you -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.html#a10790358 Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
I'd do the install (and uninstall) while taking a log to identify where the time is going. It's probably a costing or validation, but without data it's just guesswork. 1. What's that saying? More computing sins have been committed for the sake of performance than anything else. You shouldn't be giving up a good component rule to make the install faster. However if you have a huge number of data files it might help to have some number of them in a single component with a versioned binary as its keypath that the data files use as a companion file for versioning. You get better control over versioning of the data files, and there's only one component for MSI to manage instead of one per data file. 2. This is the kind of thing you can do yourself and time it. 3. File hashing is a CRC of a kind, but again, you don't want to turn off file hashing because of the issues you'll get as a result. The other CRC, MSICHECKCRCS, is not set by default anyway. DISABLEROLLBACK might be an option, but again, bad things can result from using it. Phil Wilson -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 11:55 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Hello everybody, Thank you very much for your advices. I tried several options but an issue still remains. I was wondering if changing the way I organize components and media can affect install speed. What will perform faster: 1. Having 1 component per file, or putting large number of files in a single component 2. Providing I install from DVD what is faster : uncompressed files or cab . Note that big chunk of input files is already compressed. 3. Is there any overhead like CRC computation, or anything like performed at File Copy stage that I could switch off. Thank you , Igor Igor Maslov wrote: This is probably more Windows Installer question than a WiX specific. I have an install with abot 3 GB of files. All it does is copying files and creating shortcuts. MSI file has tranforms for several languages, this localization affects only installer GUI, set of files is language neutral and it's stored in separate cab files not embedded in MSI. The speed of the installation phase is very slow. At the beginning of the installation, just before copying files it sits there for 5 minutes. I wonder if there are any properties or settings I could use to improve speed of installation (and uninstall) Thank you -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.ht ml#a10790358 Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
The more components there are, the more checking has to be done (of KeyPaths) to determine what needs to be copied. You could potentially increase the number of files per component, but be aware that: - a component is only installed if its KeyPath is determined to be out-of-date (older file version, mismatched hash) - all files in a component are installed to the same directory - there are problems with adding and removing files from a component WiX always generates hashes for unversioned files, unless the -sh switch is specified. However, if you do specify -sh, it also doesn't extract the version number, making the feature useless. There is no other way to override the hashing. This costs you time when building the MSI - because the files going into the package must be hashed - and at install time, because the existing file must be hashed. If you're installing large files this process may take a lot of time since it has to read the whole currently-installed file to decide whether to overwrite it. Whether this is good or bad depends on the relative speed of the source and destination media and whether they can be run in parallel. I'd always assumed that the creation timestamp was taken into consideration for an unversioned file, but re-reading the SDK's Default Versioning Rules it appears that actually, last installed file wins, for unversioned files (as long as the currently-installed file has not been modified). Compressing the files might improve transfer speed from the DVD; the overhead of decompressing is negligible on a modern system. The CAB compression scheme isn't particularly advanced and therefore doesn't tax the processor. Another thing not often considered is the physical layout on the DVD. I recall VS.NET 2003 taking a lot less time to install than VS.NET 2002 simply because the physical file layout was woeful for 2002: the CD drive was constantly seeking. Windows Installer installs the files in the sequence listed in the Sequence column of the File table. It doesn't look like there's any way to control the Sequence in WiX - it simply lays out the files in the order that the intermediate files are supplied to light (for a wixlib, the order the wixobj files were supplied to lit), and within that, the order they appeared in the source. -- Mike Dimmick -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: 24 May 2007 19:55 To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Hello everybody, Thank you very much for your advices. I tried several options but an issue still remains. I was wondering if changing the way I organize components and media can affect install speed. What will perform faster: 1. Having 1 component per file, or putting large number of files in a single component 2. Providing I install from DVD what is faster : uncompressed files or cab . Note that big chunk of input files is already compressed. 3. Is there any overhead like CRC computation, or anything like performed at File Copy stage that I could switch off. Thank you , Igor Igor Maslov wrote: This is probably more Windows Installer question than a WiX specific. I have an install with abot 3 GB of files. All it does is copying files and creating shortcuts. MSI file has tranforms for several languages, this localization affects only installer GUI, set of files is language neutral and it's stored in separate cab files not embedded in MSI. The speed of the installation phase is very slow. At the beginning of the installation, just before copying files it sits there for 5 minutes. I wonder if there are any properties or settings I could use to improve speed of installation (and uninstall) Thank you -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.html#a 10790358 Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
My slow speed comes from the File copying phase. I.e. all steps are running quite fast, but when I see Copying Files on a progress dialog it's where it takes most of the time. I have 3GB of files, some of them are quite big, up to 100 Mb, and already compresssed. It takes about 25-30 min to install from DVD, and I need to get it under 15. 1. Yes, component rules are important, but speed is absolute requirement. And I use custom upgrade solution, not from Windows Installer. All I need in installation is to copy files and create shortcuts. 2. This is the kind of thing you can do yourself and time it. Yes, I'm doing those tests, just thought that somebody already has useful info. 3. I used DISABLEROLLBACK on uninstall, which helped with speed a lot, but for fresh install it does not seem to be doing much. Does it? Thank You Igor Wilson, Phil wrote: I'd do the install (and uninstall) while taking a log to identify where the time is going. It's probably a costing or validation, but without data it's just guesswork. 1. What's that saying? More computing sins have been committed for the sake of performance than anything else. You shouldn't be giving up a good component rule to make the install faster. However if you have a huge number of data files it might help to have some number of them in a single component with a versioned binary as its keypath that the data files use as a companion file for versioning. You get better control over versioning of the data files, and there's only one component for MSI to manage instead of one per data file. 2. This is the kind of thing you can do yourself and time it. 3. File hashing is a CRC of a kind, but again, you don't want to turn off file hashing because of the issues you'll get as a result. The other CRC, MSICHECKCRCS, is not set by default anyway. DISABLEROLLBACK might be an option, but again, bad things can result from using it. Phil Wilson -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 11:55 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Hello everybody, Thank you very much for your advices. I tried several options but an issue still remains. I was wondering if changing the way I organize components and media can affect install speed. What will perform faster: 1. Having 1 component per file, or putting large number of files in a single component 2. Providing I install from DVD what is faster : uncompressed files or cab . Note that big chunk of input files is already compressed. 3. Is there any overhead like CRC computation, or anything like performed at File Copy stage that I could switch off. Thank you , Igor Igor Maslov wrote: This is probably more Windows Installer question than a WiX specific. I have an install with abot 3 GB of files. All it does is copying files and creating shortcuts. MSI file has tranforms for several languages, this localization affects only installer GUI, set of files is language neutral and it's stored in separate cab files not embedded in MSI. The speed of the installation phase is very slow. At the beginning of the installation, just before copying files it sits there for 5 minutes. I wonder if there are any properties or settings I could use to improve speed of installation (and uninstall) Thank you -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.ht ml#a10790358 Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.html#a10792395 Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
Thanks, That's exactly kind of info I needed. 1. Seems that -sh is a solution for me. I don't use Windows Installer for upgrades. It's always a full install. 2. I generate single WiX file with all source files listed there. All I need is to lay out files on dvd in the same order as they are listed in the wix source file? If I compress all files into a single cab, are they in the same order as in Sequence table? In this case I'm good? Igor Mike Dimmick-2 wrote: The more components there are, the more checking has to be done (of KeyPaths) to determine what needs to be copied. You could potentially increase the number of files per component, but be aware that: - a component is only installed if its KeyPath is determined to be out-of-date (older file version, mismatched hash) - all files in a component are installed to the same directory - there are problems with adding and removing files from a component WiX always generates hashes for unversioned files, unless the -sh switch is specified. However, if you do specify -sh, it also doesn't extract the version number, making the feature useless. There is no other way to override the hashing. This costs you time when building the MSI - because the files going into the package must be hashed - and at install time, because the existing file must be hashed. If you're installing large files this process may take a lot of time since it has to read the whole currently-installed file to decide whether to overwrite it. Whether this is good or bad depends on the relative speed of the source and destination media and whether they can be run in parallel. I'd always assumed that the creation timestamp was taken into consideration for an unversioned file, but re-reading the SDK's Default Versioning Rules it appears that actually, last installed file wins, for unversioned files (as long as the currently-installed file has not been modified). Compressing the files might improve transfer speed from the DVD; the overhead of decompressing is negligible on a modern system. The CAB compression scheme isn't particularly advanced and therefore doesn't tax the processor. Another thing not often considered is the physical layout on the DVD. I recall VS.NET 2003 taking a lot less time to install than VS.NET 2002 simply because the physical file layout was woeful for 2002: the CD drive was constantly seeking. Windows Installer installs the files in the sequence listed in the Sequence column of the File table. It doesn't look like there's any way to control the Sequence in WiX - it simply lays out the files in the order that the intermediate files are supplied to light (for a wixlib, the order the wixobj files were supplied to lit), and within that, the order they appeared in the source. -- Mike Dimmick -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: 24 May 2007 19:55 To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Hello everybody, Thank you very much for your advices. I tried several options but an issue still remains. I was wondering if changing the way I organize components and media can affect install speed. What will perform faster: 1. Having 1 component per file, or putting large number of files in a single component 2. Providing I install from DVD what is faster : uncompressed files or cab . Note that big chunk of input files is already compressed. 3. Is there any overhead like CRC computation, or anything like performed at File Copy stage that I could switch off. Thank you , Igor Igor Maslov wrote: This is probably more Windows Installer question than a WiX specific. I have an install with abot 3 GB of files. All it does is copying files and creating shortcuts. MSI file has tranforms for several languages, this localization affects only installer GUI, set of files is language neutral and it's stored in separate cab files not embedded in MSI. The speed of the installation phase is very slow. At the beginning of the installation, just before copying files it sits there for 5 minutes. I wonder if there are any properties or settings I could use to improve speed of installation (and uninstall) Thank you -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.html#a 10790358 Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
At the risk of sounding anti-wix (I'm very pro-wix!) you might ask yourself if you need an installer at all. If you're not doing any kind of upgrades, uninstalls, etc., and everything is content... Why not just a DVD with a simple batch file that copies everything and creates shortcut(s)? It can easily be done and in the case of something so big, there is some overhead with any installer. It doesn't seem like this case warrants the sophistication inherent in an .msi. I've worked in shops where all our installations were internal, and for content we just pulled the goods right out of our source control tool. It is a different kind of file copy, but a file copy none the less. We saved a lot of time by not having to archive/compress huge files, etc. -Matt -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 2:16 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Thanks, That's exactly kind of info I needed. 1. Seems that -sh is a solution for me. I don't use Windows Installer for upgrades. It's always a full install. 2. I generate single WiX file with all source files listed there. All I need is to lay out files on dvd in the same order as they are listed in the wix source file? If I compress all files into a single cab, are they in the same order as in Sequence table? In this case I'm good? Igor Mike Dimmick-2 wrote: The more components there are, the more checking has to be done (of KeyPaths) to determine what needs to be copied. You could potentially increase the number of files per component, but be aware that: - a component is only installed if its KeyPath is determined to be out-of-date (older file version, mismatched hash) - all files in a component are installed to the same directory - there are problems with adding and removing files from a component WiX always generates hashes for unversioned files, unless the -sh switch is specified. However, if you do specify -sh, it also doesn't extract the version number, making the feature useless. There is no other way to override the hashing. This costs you time when building the MSI - because the files going into the package must be hashed - and at install time, because the existing file must be hashed. If you're installing large files this process may take a lot of time since it has to read the whole currently-installed file to decide whether to overwrite it. Whether this is good or bad depends on the relative speed of the source and destination media and whether they can be run in parallel. I'd always assumed that the creation timestamp was taken into consideration for an unversioned file, but re-reading the SDK's Default Versioning Rules it appears that actually, last installed file wins, for unversioned files (as long as the currently-installed file has not been modified). Compressing the files might improve transfer speed from the DVD; the overhead of decompressing is negligible on a modern system. The CAB compression scheme isn't particularly advanced and therefore doesn't tax the processor. Another thing not often considered is the physical layout on the DVD. I recall VS.NET 2003 taking a lot less time to install than VS.NET 2002 simply because the physical file layout was woeful for 2002: the CD drive was constantly seeking. Windows Installer installs the files in the sequence listed in the Sequence column of the File table. It doesn't look like there's any way to control the Sequence in WiX - it simply lays out the files in the order that the intermediate files are supplied to light (for a wixlib, the order the wixobj files were supplied to lit), and within that, the order they appeared in the source. -- Mike Dimmick -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: 24 May 2007 19:55 To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Hello everybody, Thank you very much for your advices. I tried several options but an issue still remains. I was wondering if changing the way I organize components and media can affect install speed. What will perform faster: 1. Having 1 component per file, or putting large number of files in a single component 2. Providing I install from DVD what is faster : uncompressed files or cab . Note that big chunk of input files is already compressed. 3. Is there any overhead like CRC computation, or anything like performed at File Copy stage that I could switch off. Thank you , Igor Igor Maslov wrote: This is probably more Windows Installer question than a WiX specific. I have an install with abot 3 GB of files. All it does is copying files and creating shortcuts. MSI file has tranforms for several languages, this localization affects only
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
Yes, I'm asking myself whether it was a wise decision to move to MSI. It's not an internal install, it's retail product. We had our custom program in C++ and custom upgrade solution. It was working fine. Now problems I'm fasing with MSI and WiX: 1. This probably comes from my insufficient knowdge of these technologies, but each feature takes 3-4 times more time to implement than if I were writing it, for example, in C I might need to launch third party installs, under the same GUI umbrella, but I can't launch another Windows Installer package - so I need a complex bootstraper with GUI. 2. WiX build times, (mostly light.exe) are very big. To make multilanguage installs I have to build full installation for each language, and it may take a lot of time if we are taking about 10 languages, for example. 3. Install times are bigger. Yes, there are many things that are coming for free, when I use Windows Installer and WiX, but there are so many trade offs as well. Matthew Janulewicz-2 wrote: At the risk of sounding anti-wix (I'm very pro-wix!) you might ask yourself if you need an installer at all. If you're not doing any kind of upgrades, uninstalls, etc., and everything is content... Why not just a DVD with a simple batch file that copies everything and creates shortcut(s)? It can easily be done and in the case of something so big, there is some overhead with any installer. It doesn't seem like this case warrants the sophistication inherent in an .msi. I've worked in shops where all our installations were internal, and for content we just pulled the goods right out of our source control tool. It is a different kind of file copy, but a file copy none the less. We saved a lot of time by not having to archive/compress huge files, etc. -Matt -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 2:16 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Thanks, That's exactly kind of info I needed. 1. Seems that -sh is a solution for me. I don't use Windows Installer for upgrades. It's always a full install. 2. I generate single WiX file with all source files listed there. All I need is to lay out files on dvd in the same order as they are listed in the wix source file? If I compress all files into a single cab, are they in the same order as in Sequence table? In this case I'm good? Igor Mike Dimmick-2 wrote: The more components there are, the more checking has to be done (of KeyPaths) to determine what needs to be copied. You could potentially increase the number of files per component, but be aware that: - a component is only installed if its KeyPath is determined to be out-of-date (older file version, mismatched hash) - all files in a component are installed to the same directory - there are problems with adding and removing files from a component WiX always generates hashes for unversioned files, unless the -sh switch is specified. However, if you do specify -sh, it also doesn't extract the version number, making the feature useless. There is no other way to override the hashing. This costs you time when building the MSI - because the files going into the package must be hashed - and at install time, because the existing file must be hashed. If you're installing large files this process may take a lot of time since it has to read the whole currently-installed file to decide whether to overwrite it. Whether this is good or bad depends on the relative speed of the source and destination media and whether they can be run in parallel. I'd always assumed that the creation timestamp was taken into consideration for an unversioned file, but re-reading the SDK's Default Versioning Rules it appears that actually, last installed file wins, for unversioned files (as long as the currently-installed file has not been modified). Compressing the files might improve transfer speed from the DVD; the overhead of decompressing is negligible on a modern system. The CAB compression scheme isn't particularly advanced and therefore doesn't tax the processor. Another thing not often considered is the physical layout on the DVD. I recall VS.NET 2003 taking a lot less time to install than VS.NET 2002 simply because the physical file layout was woeful for 2002: the CD drive was constantly seeking. Windows Installer installs the files in the sequence listed in the Sequence column of the File table. It doesn't look like there's any way to control the Sequence in WiX - it simply lays out the files in the order that the intermediate files are supplied to light (for a wixlib, the order the wixobj files were supplied to lit), and within that, the order they appeared in the source. -- Mike Dimmick -Original Message- From
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
Using -sh improved installation speed by 10%. Speed of link time was not affected (or almost was not). Also behaviour of the progress bar changed. Instead of showing progress smoothly, it shows the progress of each individual file. Any idea why? Mike Dimmick-2 wrote: The more components there are, the more checking has to be done (of KeyPaths) to determine what needs to be copied. You could potentially increase the number of files per component, but be aware that: - a component is only installed if its KeyPath is determined to be out-of-date (older file version, mismatched hash) - all files in a component are installed to the same directory - there are problems with adding and removing files from a component WiX always generates hashes for unversioned files, unless the -sh switch is specified. However, if you do specify -sh, it also doesn't extract the version number, making the feature useless. There is no other way to override the hashing. This costs you time when building the MSI - because the files going into the package must be hashed - and at install time, because the existing file must be hashed. If you're installing large files this process may take a lot of time since it has to read the whole currently-installed file to decide whether to overwrite it. Whether this is good or bad depends on the relative speed of the source and destination media and whether they can be run in parallel. I'd always assumed that the creation timestamp was taken into consideration for an unversioned file, but re-reading the SDK's Default Versioning Rules it appears that actually, last installed file wins, for unversioned files (as long as the currently-installed file has not been modified). Compressing the files might improve transfer speed from the DVD; the overhead of decompressing is negligible on a modern system. The CAB compression scheme isn't particularly advanced and therefore doesn't tax the processor. Another thing not often considered is the physical layout on the DVD. I recall VS.NET 2003 taking a lot less time to install than VS.NET 2002 simply because the physical file layout was woeful for 2002: the CD drive was constantly seeking. Windows Installer installs the files in the sequence listed in the Sequence column of the File table. It doesn't look like there's any way to control the Sequence in WiX - it simply lays out the files in the order that the intermediate files are supplied to light (for a wixlib, the order the wixobj files were supplied to lit), and within that, the order they appeared in the source. -- Mike Dimmick -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: 24 May 2007 19:55 To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Hello everybody, Thank you very much for your advices. I tried several options but an issue still remains. I was wondering if changing the way I organize components and media can affect install speed. What will perform faster: 1. Having 1 component per file, or putting large number of files in a single component 2. Providing I install from DVD what is faster : uncompressed files or cab . Note that big chunk of input files is already compressed. 3. Is there any overhead like CRC computation, or anything like performed at File Copy stage that I could switch off. Thank you , Igor Igor Maslov wrote: This is probably more Windows Installer question than a WiX specific. I have an install with abot 3 GB of files. All it does is copying files and creating shortcuts. MSI file has tranforms for several languages, this localization affects only installer GUI, set of files is language neutral and it's stored in separate cab files not embedded in MSI. The speed of the installation phase is very slow. At the beginning of the installation, just before copying files it sits there for 5 minutes. I wonder if there are any properties or settings I could use to improve speed of installation (and uninstall) Thank you -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.html#a 10790358 Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
The code suppressed by -sh is also responsible for recording the file sizes. Windows Installer then doesn't know how large the files are overall, so can't give you a decent progress report. My feeling is that -sh should probably just suppress the hashing - version info and size are very important, and omitting the version information changes the whole nature of the file replacement decision - and that it would be nice to control the file hash behaviour on a per-file basis. The file hash is, I think, there for slow-source scenarios (e.g. remote file server with an administrative image, downloading CABs over the internet) to avoid unnecessary copies from the slow source. -- Mike Dimmick -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: 24 May 2007 23:47 To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Using -sh improved installation speed by 10%. Speed of link time was not affected (or almost was not). Also behaviour of the progress bar changed. Instead of showing progress smoothly, it shows the progress of each individual file. Any idea why? Mike Dimmick-2 wrote: The more components there are, the more checking has to be done (of KeyPaths) to determine what needs to be copied. You could potentially increase the number of files per component, but be aware that: - a component is only installed if its KeyPath is determined to be out-of-date (older file version, mismatched hash) - all files in a component are installed to the same directory - there are problems with adding and removing files from a component WiX always generates hashes for unversioned files, unless the -sh switch is specified. However, if you do specify -sh, it also doesn't extract the version number, making the feature useless. There is no other way to override the hashing. This costs you time when building the MSI - because the files going into the package must be hashed - and at install time, because the existing file must be hashed. If you're installing large files this process may take a lot of time since it has to read the whole currently-installed file to decide whether to overwrite it. Whether this is good or bad depends on the relative speed of the source and destination media and whether they can be run in parallel. I'd always assumed that the creation timestamp was taken into consideration for an unversioned file, but re-reading the SDK's Default Versioning Rules it appears that actually, last installed file wins, for unversioned files (as long as the currently-installed file has not been modified). Compressing the files might improve transfer speed from the DVD; the overhead of decompressing is negligible on a modern system. The CAB compression scheme isn't particularly advanced and therefore doesn't tax the processor. Another thing not often considered is the physical layout on the DVD. I recall VS.NET 2003 taking a lot less time to install than VS.NET 2002 simply because the physical file layout was woeful for 2002: the CD drive was constantly seeking. Windows Installer installs the files in the sequence listed in the Sequence column of the File table. It doesn't look like there's any way to control the Sequence in WiX - it simply lays out the files in the order that the intermediate files are supplied to light (for a wixlib, the order the wixobj files were supplied to lit), and within that, the order they appeared in the source. -- Mike Dimmick -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: 24 May 2007 19:55 To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Hello everybody, Thank you very much for your advices. I tried several options but an issue still remains. I was wondering if changing the way I organize components and media can affect install speed. What will perform faster: 1. Having 1 component per file, or putting large number of files in a single component 2. Providing I install from DVD what is faster : uncompressed files or cab . Note that big chunk of input files is already compressed. 3. Is there any overhead like CRC computation, or anything like performed at File Copy stage that I could switch off. Thank you , Igor Igor Maslov wrote: This is probably more Windows Installer question than a WiX specific. I have an install with abot 3 GB of files. All it does is copying files and creating shortcuts. MSI file has tranforms for several languages, this localization affects only installer GUI, set of files is language neutral and it's stored in separate cab files not embedded in MSI. The speed of the installation phase is very slow. At the beginning of the installation, just before copying files it sits there for 5 minutes. I wonder if there are any
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
First I have to say I have no experience of this but off the top of my head would using multiple cabs work? I think you can have multiple Media entries and put groups of components in each. I think it might also help if the cabs were not embedded. Hope this helps. Neil Neil Sleightholm X2 Systems Limited [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: 19 May 2007 01:46 To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? I don't think I can avoid compression. It will not fit on DVD. The same with splitting it in many MSI. It will change user experience. I need to have a single set of configuration dialogs and then install files. Speed is esential. I wonder if there are some property settings that can improve speed. I wrote code in C++ to uncopress cab files and copy them into target location and it runs twice faster. I'm wondering what is making MSI execution slower. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
[WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
This is probably more Windows Installer question than a WiX specific. I have an install with abot 3 GB of files. All it does is copying files and creating shortcuts. MSI file has tranforms for several languages, this localization affects only installer GUI, set of files is language neutral and it's stored in separate cab files not embedded in MSI. The speed of the installation phase is very slow. At the beginning of the installation, just before copying files it sits there for 5 minutes. I wonder if there are any properties or settings I could use to improve speed of installation (and uninstall) Thank you -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.html#a10690035 Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
You might want to go one step further and eliminate the cab files altogether. The installation package as a whole is certainly not nearly as compact and neat but you might gain some performance not extracting from the cab. If the content lends itself to the concept, you could try breaking it up into multiple projects and use a bootstrapper to sequence those parts. I used it to fairly good success with a particularly enormous project (Started at ~30GB and after three years of updates is about to hit ~50GB) as well as another project that was smaller at ~5GB and found that it actually helped with performance across the board for build, install, update, and uninstall. I don't know how much improvement you would see at 3GB though. It did help that both projects were very easy to break up into logical components so that may also impact how useful the idea is for you. If you do find anything else useful, I would certainly be interested in hearing about it. On 5/18/07, Igor Maslov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is probably more Windows Installer question than a WiX specific. I have an install with abot 3 GB of files. All it does is copying files and creating shortcuts. MSI file has tranforms for several languages, this localization affects only installer GUI, set of files is language neutral and it's stored in separate cab files not embedded in MSI. The speed of the installation phase is very slow. At the beginning of the installation, just before copying files it sits there for 5 minutes. I wonder if there are any properties or settings I could use to improve speed of installation (and uninstall) Thank you -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.html#a10690035 Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- --Nathan Stohlmann Minneapolis, MN USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation?
I don't think I can avoid compression. It will not fit on DVD. The same with splitting it in many MSI. It will change user experience. I need to have a single set of configuration dialogs and then install files. Speed is esential. I wonder if there are some property settings that can improve speed. I wrote code in C++ to uncopress cab files and copy them into target location and it runs twice faster. I'm wondering what is making MSI execution slower. Nathan Stohlmann wrote: You might want to go one step further and eliminate the cab files altogether. The installation package as a whole is certainly not nearly as compact and neat but you might gain some performance not extracting from the cab. If the content lends itself to the concept, you could try breaking it up into multiple projects and use a bootstrapper to sequence those parts. I used it to fairly good success with a particularly enormous project (Started at ~30GB and after three years of updates is about to hit ~50GB) as well as another project that was smaller at ~5GB and found that it actually helped with performance across the board for build, install, update, and uninstall. I don't know how much improvement you would see at 3GB though. It did help that both projects were very easy to break up into logical components so that may also impact how useful the idea is for you. If you do find anything else useful, I would certainly be interested in hearing about it. On 5/18/07, Igor Maslov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is probably more Windows Installer question than a WiX specific. I have an install with abot 3 GB of files. All it does is copying files and creating shortcuts. MSI file has tranforms for several languages, this localization affects only installer GUI, set of files is language neutral and it's stored in separate cab files not embedded in MSI. The speed of the installation phase is very slow. At the beginning of the installation, just before copying files it sits there for 5 minutes. I wonder if there are any properties or settings I could use to improve speed of installation (and uninstall) Thank you -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.html#a10690035 Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- --Nathan Stohlmann Minneapolis, MN USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.html#a10692622 Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
