Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS
Hi, - Wix based on Windows installation technology(msi), which is controlled/managed by windows installer service. - Its Microsoft recommended installer building software which has built in support in windows. NSIS is not more than a wrapper over scripting language where as WIX/MSI is specifically designed to write installer for windows. - MSI installer files are simply database files, where as NSIS based installers are binary executable. Wix/msi based installer will support automatic rollback, uninstall, logging etc, where as in NSIS you have to write scripts for everything. - Various services like WMI, has built in support of MSI based installer, where as for NSIS based installer will be treated as a simple executable in it. - Microsoft visual studio has support of WIX toolkit, which makes development easy. - As your installer grow it becomes difficult to manage it using NSIS. We have initially NSIS based installer which was migrated to WIX after some time. MSI based installers are future of windows installation technology. Regards, Sanjay Rao On 4/17/2013 6:32 PM, Nick Miller wrote: Hey guys, thank you for all of your great responses. Allow me to provide a little background, over the past few weeks I have been learning Wix for a special project I worked on. I've gone through the tutorials, I've read the book by Nick Ramirez, and have been able to create a custom managed bootstrapper application. My company has many applications that use a few different installation technologies (mostly NSIS) and we are looking to standardize. I think Wix is awesome, and believe we should use it exclusively, so I guess my question is how do I sell this to the boss? Mind you, he is very technically proficient... -Original Message- From: Rob Mensching [mailto:r...@robmensching.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 7:53 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS I'm obviously biased but non-declarative installation technologies like NSIS are a complete non-starter for me. I don't want to write scripts that install files then have to remember write more scripts to uninstall those files. I had a couple consulting gigs to convert setups from NSIS. It amazed me how much code they maintained to just do the above. The .wxs files were usually smaller and far easier to maintain. Script based installs are just the wrong way to solve the problem, IMHO. On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 4:39 PM, Wesley Manning wmann...@dynagen.ca wrote: Last time I looked NSIS hasn't been updated since 2009. I also contemplated using NSIS. What attracted me to Wix is that it is based on MSI which (at the time) you needed to get app Windows certified. And that it is XML based which I knew. And the bootstrapper, burn, because I needed to install .net framework, drivers, etc. If you go with Wix I'll recommend the book: http://www.packtpub.com/windows-installer-xml-3-6-developers-guide/book. Bring you up to speed very fast on basics. Only thing it didn't have for me was how to install drivers, advertised shortcuts, and how to install certificates which I picked up on the internet and this mail group. Wes -Original Message- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 16, 2013 7:44 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hi All, My company is evaluating two different Windows installer solutions, WiX and Nullsoft installer (NSIS). I was wondering if anyone has had experience with both, and could weigh in on the pros and cons, benefits, limitations, etc. Thanks, Nick -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS
Hey guys, thank you for all of your great responses. Allow me to provide a little background, over the past few weeks I have been learning Wix for a special project I worked on. I've gone through the tutorials, I've read the book by Nick Ramirez, and have been able to create a custom managed bootstrapper application. My company has many applications that use a few different installation technologies (mostly NSIS) and we are looking to standardize. I think Wix is awesome, and believe we should use it exclusively, so I guess my question is how do I sell this to the boss? Mind you, he is very technically proficient... -Original Message- From: Rob Mensching [mailto:r...@robmensching.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 7:53 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS I'm obviously biased but non-declarative installation technologies like NSIS are a complete non-starter for me. I don't want to write scripts that install files then have to remember write more scripts to uninstall those files. I had a couple consulting gigs to convert setups from NSIS. It amazed me how much code they maintained to just do the above. The .wxs files were usually smaller and far easier to maintain. Script based installs are just the wrong way to solve the problem, IMHO. On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 4:39 PM, Wesley Manning wmann...@dynagen.ca wrote: Last time I looked NSIS hasn't been updated since 2009. I also contemplated using NSIS. What attracted me to Wix is that it is based on MSI which (at the time) you needed to get app Windows certified. And that it is XML based which I knew. And the bootstrapper, burn, because I needed to install .net framework, drivers, etc. If you go with Wix I'll recommend the book: http://www.packtpub.com/windows-installer-xml-3-6-developers-guide/book. Bring you up to speed very fast on basics. Only thing it didn't have for me was how to install drivers, advertised shortcuts, and how to install certificates which I picked up on the internet and this mail group. Wes -Original Message- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 16, 2013 7:44 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hi All, My company is evaluating two different Windows installer solutions, WiX and Nullsoft installer (NSIS). I was wondering if anyone has had experience with both, and could weigh in on the pros and cons, benefits, limitations, etc. Thanks, Nick -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS
Perhaps all the arguments you need have already been mentioned in this thread? 1) Being technically proficient, perhaps he would understand the inherent costs of maintaining the mass of now NSIS code versus the relative conciseness of WiX (as mentioned by Rob). 2) Follow that up with an example of how long/how much it costs to convert one of the NSIS installers to WiX, and roughly figure out the savings over time of going WiX. 3) Finally, throw in the fact that NSIS hasn't been supported since 2009, while WiX is a very active and supportive open-source community. Even further, if he wants some time down the line, it would be possible to contact a consulting company to outsource the WiX installer infrastructure and add functionality to WiX, since one of the founders of WiX (*cough* Rob *cough, cough*) will soon be providing such a service. Then again, maybe you don't want to mention that last point, because it might put your job security at risk. :-P Alain -Original Message- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 17, 2013 09:03 To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hey guys, thank you for all of your great responses. Allow me to provide a little background, over the past few weeks I have been learning Wix for a special project I worked on. I've gone through the tutorials, I've read the book by Nick Ramirez, and have been able to create a custom managed bootstrapper application. My company has many applications that use a few different installation technologies (mostly NSIS) and we are looking to standardize. I think Wix is awesome, and believe we should use it exclusively, so I guess my question is how do I sell this to the boss? Mind you, he is very technically proficient... -Original Message- From: Rob Mensching [mailto:r...@robmensching.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 7:53 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS I'm obviously biased but non-declarative installation technologies like NSIS are a complete non-starter for me. I don't want to write scripts that install files then have to remember write more scripts to uninstall those files. I had a couple consulting gigs to convert setups from NSIS. It amazed me how much code they maintained to just do the above. The .wxs files were usually smaller and far easier to maintain. Script based installs are just the wrong way to solve the problem, IMHO. On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 4:39 PM, Wesley Manning wmann...@dynagen.ca wrote: Last time I looked NSIS hasn't been updated since 2009. I also contemplated using NSIS. What attracted me to Wix is that it is based on MSI which (at the time) you needed to get app Windows certified. And that it is XML based which I knew. And the bootstrapper, burn, because I needed to install .net framework, drivers, etc. If you go with Wix I'll recommend the book: http://www.packtpub.com/windows-installer-xml-3-6-developers-guide/book. Bring you up to speed very fast on basics. Only thing it didn't have for me was how to install drivers, advertised shortcuts, and how to install certificates which I picked up on the internet and this mail group. Wes -Original Message- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 16, 2013 7:44 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hi All, My company is evaluating two different Windows installer solutions, WiX and Nullsoft installer (NSIS). I was wondering if anyone has had experience with both, and could weigh in on the pros and cons, benefits, limitations, etc. Thanks, Nick -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS
Assuming the report about NSIS not using Windows Installer technologies is true, that should be enough to rule it out as far as I am concerned. Known logging details, known tools for removal/upgrading, etc. all make WI useful. Since it is sometimes arcane, that's where the usefulness of WiX comes in - I find its level of abstraction in its documentation to be about right. Compare with what we moved away from - Visual Studio set up projects. These always seemed to run into places where the documentation had crazy but useful gaps, or they would just fail mysteriously with no ease of finding help. For example, I migrated a setup project from VS2008 to 2010 and just got an HRESULT style error back with the project conversion. Why did this happen? A few hours of google foo and I said enough is enough I'll move this one to WiX too. And I haven't looked back. (Also, does NSIS cost anything? Don't forget the benefit/cost ratio :)) Keith Douglas Statistics Canada | 170 Tunney's Pasture Driveway, Ottawa ON K1A 0T6 Statistique Canada | 170, promenade Tunney's Pasture, Ottawa ON K1A 0T6 keith.doug...@statcan.gc.ca Telephone | Téléphone 613-951-4405 Facsimile | Télécopieur 613-951-1966 Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada -Original Message- From: Alain Forget [mailto:afor...@cmu.edu] Sent: April-17-13 9:39 AM To: 'General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset.' Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Perhaps all the arguments you need have already been mentioned in this thread? 1) Being technically proficient, perhaps he would understand the inherent costs of maintaining the mass of now NSIS code versus the relative conciseness of WiX (as mentioned by Rob). 2) Follow that up with an example of how long/how much it costs to convert one of the NSIS installers to WiX, and roughly figure out the savings over time of going WiX. 3) Finally, throw in the fact that NSIS hasn't been supported since 2009, while WiX is a very active and supportive open-source community. Even further, if he wants some time down the line, it would be possible to contact a consulting company to outsource the WiX installer infrastructure and add functionality to WiX, since one of the founders of WiX (*cough* Rob *cough, cough*) will soon be providing such a service. Then again, maybe you don't want to mention that last point, because it might put your job security at risk. :-P Alain -Original Message- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 17, 2013 09:03 To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hey guys, thank you for all of your great responses. Allow me to provide a little background, over the past few weeks I have been learning Wix for a special project I worked on. I've gone through the tutorials, I've read the book by Nick Ramirez, and have been able to create a custom managed bootstrapper application. My company has many applications that use a few different installation technologies (mostly NSIS) and we are looking to standardize. I think Wix is awesome, and believe we should use it exclusively, so I guess my question is how do I sell this to the boss? Mind you, he is very technically proficient... -Original Message- From: Rob Mensching [mailto:r...@robmensching.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 7:53 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS I'm obviously biased but non-declarative installation technologies like NSIS are a complete non-starter for me. I don't want to write scripts that install files then have to remember write more scripts to uninstall those files. I had a couple consulting gigs to convert setups from NSIS. It amazed me how much code they maintained to just do the above. The .wxs files were usually smaller and far easier to maintain. Script based installs are just the wrong way to solve the problem, IMHO. On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 4:39 PM, Wesley Manning wmann...@dynagen.ca wrote: Last time I looked NSIS hasn't been updated since 2009. I also contemplated using NSIS. What attracted me to Wix is that it is based on MSI which (at the time) you needed to get app Windows certified. And that it is XML based which I knew. And the bootstrapper, burn, because I needed to install .net framework, drivers, etc. If you go with Wix I'll recommend the book: http://www.packtpub.com/windows-installer-xml-3-6-developers-guide/book. Bring you up to speed very fast on basics. Only thing it didn't have for me was how to install drivers, advertised shortcuts, and how to install certificates which I picked up on the internet and this mail group. Wes -Original Message- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 16, 2013 7:44 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hi All, My company is evaluating two
Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS
On 17/04/2013 14:39, Alain Forget wrote: 3) Finally, throw in the fact that NSIS hasn't been supported since 2009, while WiX is a very active and supportive open-source community. Even further, if he wants some time down the line, it would be possible to contact a consulting company to outsource the WiX installer infrastructure and add functionality to WiX, since one of the founders of WiX (*cough* Rob *cough, cough*) will soon be providing such a service. I'm not sure this is really correct: there haven't been any releases on the main site since 2009, but http://nsis.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/nsis/NSIS/trunk/ shows that work is going on, and the Unicode version at http://www.scratchpaper.com/ had a release last year. -- Bruce Cran -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS
Nick, Shoot me an email and we'll chat about it. I need to explain all the finer points of *WHY* we use MSI and once you fully comprehend the subject it'll be an easy sell. Regards, Chris From: Nick Miller nmil...@livetechnology.com Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 8:10 AM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hey guys, thank you for all of your great responses. Allow me to provide a little background, over the past few weeks I have been learning Wix for a special project I worked on. I've gone through the tutorials, I've read the book by Nick Ramirez, and have been able to create a custom managed bootstrapper application. My company has many applications that use a few different installation technologies (mostly NSIS) and we are looking to standardize. I think Wix is awesome, and believe we should use it exclusively, so I guess my question is how do I sell this to the boss? Mind you, he is very technically proficient... -Original Message- From: Rob Mensching [mailto:r...@robmensching.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 7:53 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS I'm obviously biased but non-declarative installation technologies like NSIS are a complete non-starter for me. I don't want to write scripts that install files then have to remember write more scripts to uninstall those files. I had a couple consulting gigs to convert setups from NSIS. It amazed me how much code they maintained to just do the above. The .wxs files were usually smaller and far easier to maintain. Script based installs are just the wrong way to solve the problem, IMHO. On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 4:39 PM, Wesley Manning wmann...@dynagen.ca wrote: Last time I looked NSIS hasn't been updated since 2009. I also contemplated using NSIS. What attracted me to Wix is that it is based on MSI which (at the time) you needed to get app Windows certified. And that it is XML based which I knew. And the bootstrapper, burn, because I needed to install .net framework, drivers, etc. If you go with Wix I'll recommend the book: http://www.packtpub.com/windows-installer-xml-3-6-developers-guide/book. Bring you up to speed very fast on basics. Only thing it didn't have for me was how to install drivers, advertised shortcuts, and how to install certificates which I picked up on the internet and this mail group. Wes -Original Message- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 16, 2013 7:44 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hi All, My company is evaluating two different Windows installer solutions, WiX and Nullsoft installer (NSIS). I was wondering if anyone has had experience with both, and could weigh in on the pros and cons, benefits, limitations, etc. Thanks, Nick -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform
Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS
Off topic and I know Alain was just joking but I don't want people to start off confused about the company I'm creating. I'm not creating a company to provide consulting services to replace anyone doing installation work. In fact, my goal is to create a company that supports the people doing installation work. My hope is that in the near future there are even more opportunities for people working with the WiX toolset than ever before. More details (for those who care) in about two months (I think). On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 6:39 AM, Alain Forget afor...@cmu.edu wrote: Perhaps all the arguments you need have already been mentioned in this thread? 1) Being technically proficient, perhaps he would understand the inherent costs of maintaining the mass of now NSIS code versus the relative conciseness of WiX (as mentioned by Rob). 2) Follow that up with an example of how long/how much it costs to convert one of the NSIS installers to WiX, and roughly figure out the savings over time of going WiX. 3) Finally, throw in the fact that NSIS hasn't been supported since 2009, while WiX is a very active and supportive open-source community. Even further, if he wants some time down the line, it would be possible to contact a consulting company to outsource the WiX installer infrastructure and add functionality to WiX, since one of the founders of WiX (*cough* Rob *cough, cough*) will soon be providing such a service. Then again, maybe you don't want to mention that last point, because it might put your job security at risk. :-P Alain -Original Message- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 17, 2013 09:03 To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hey guys, thank you for all of your great responses. Allow me to provide a little background, over the past few weeks I have been learning Wix for a special project I worked on. I've gone through the tutorials, I've read the book by Nick Ramirez, and have been able to create a custom managed bootstrapper application. My company has many applications that use a few different installation technologies (mostly NSIS) and we are looking to standardize. I think Wix is awesome, and believe we should use it exclusively, so I guess my question is how do I sell this to the boss? Mind you, he is very technically proficient... -Original Message- From: Rob Mensching [mailto:r...@robmensching.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 7:53 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS I'm obviously biased but non-declarative installation technologies like NSIS are a complete non-starter for me. I don't want to write scripts that install files then have to remember write more scripts to uninstall those files. I had a couple consulting gigs to convert setups from NSIS. It amazed me how much code they maintained to just do the above. The .wxs files were usually smaller and far easier to maintain. Script based installs are just the wrong way to solve the problem, IMHO. On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 4:39 PM, Wesley Manning wmann...@dynagen.ca wrote: Last time I looked NSIS hasn't been updated since 2009. I also contemplated using NSIS. What attracted me to Wix is that it is based on MSI which (at the time) you needed to get app Windows certified. And that it is XML based which I knew. And the bootstrapper, burn, because I needed to install .net framework, drivers, etc. If you go with Wix I'll recommend the book: http://www.packtpub.com/windows-installer-xml-3-6-developers-guide/book. Bring you up to speed very fast on basics. Only thing it didn't have for me was how to install drivers, advertised shortcuts, and how to install certificates which I picked up on the internet and this mail group. Wes -Original Message- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 16, 2013 7:44 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hi All, My company is evaluating two different Windows installer solutions, WiX and Nullsoft installer (NSIS). I was wondering if anyone has had experience with both, and could weigh in on the pros and cons, benefits, limitations, etc. Thanks, Nick -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
[WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS
Hi All, My company is evaluating two different Windows installer solutions, WiX and Nullsoft installer (NSIS). I was wondering if anyone has had experience with both, and could weigh in on the pros and cons, benefits, limitations, etc. Thanks, Nick -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS
A few months ago, we were in a similar position. Although we didn't delve very deep into NSIS, I have no regrets whatsoever about choosing WiX. As with any new technology, there is a learning curve, but there are tutorials and online posts/resources that do a very good job at teaching the basics ( http://wix.tramontana.co.hu/ has been my go-to tutorial), and the community (right here) is very helpful in solving problems that web searches cannot. A word about limitations: In my limited experience with WiX, I'm tempted to say whatever limitations it may have can be compensated for by writing your own program and calling it as a CustomAction. That said, most people here will advise that it's preferable to avoid using CAs when you can (since the more moving parts and complexity in your installation, the more fragile and error-prone it becomes). An alternative to using CAs is to try to implement your functionality into WiX itself, since WiX is open-source, and my impression is that the community is happy to incorporate new solutions into the project. I have no idea if NSIS has any analogous constructs or abilities, or what their community is like, but I'm a fan of WiX, and I have full intention of continuing to use it in this and future projects. Alain -Original Message- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 16, 2013 18:44 To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hi All, My company is evaluating two different Windows installer solutions, WiX and Nullsoft installer (NSIS). I was wondering if anyone has had experience with both, and could weigh in on the pros and cons, benefits, limitations, etc. Thanks, Nick -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS
Last time I looked NSIS hasn't been updated since 2009. I also contemplated using NSIS. What attracted me to Wix is that it is based on MSI which (at the time) you needed to get app Windows certified. And that it is XML based which I knew. And the bootstrapper, burn, because I needed to install .net framework, drivers, etc. If you go with Wix I'll recommend the book: http://www.packtpub.com/windows-installer-xml-3-6-developers-guide/book. Bring you up to speed very fast on basics. Only thing it didn't have for me was how to install drivers, advertised shortcuts, and how to install certificates which I picked up on the internet and this mail group. Wes -Original Message- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 16, 2013 7:44 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hi All, My company is evaluating two different Windows installer solutions, WiX and Nullsoft installer (NSIS). I was wondering if anyone has had experience with both, and could weigh in on the pros and cons, benefits, limitations, etc. Thanks, Nick -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS
I'm obviously biased but non-declarative installation technologies like NSIS are a complete non-starter for me. I don't want to write scripts that install files then have to remember write more scripts to uninstall those files. I had a couple consulting gigs to convert setups from NSIS. It amazed me how much code they maintained to just do the above. The .wxs files were usually smaller and far easier to maintain. Script based installs are just the wrong way to solve the problem, IMHO. On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 4:39 PM, Wesley Manning wmann...@dynagen.ca wrote: Last time I looked NSIS hasn't been updated since 2009. I also contemplated using NSIS. What attracted me to Wix is that it is based on MSI which (at the time) you needed to get app Windows certified. And that it is XML based which I knew. And the bootstrapper, burn, because I needed to install .net framework, drivers, etc. If you go with Wix I'll recommend the book: http://www.packtpub.com/windows-installer-xml-3-6-developers-guide/book. Bring you up to speed very fast on basics. Only thing it didn't have for me was how to install drivers, advertised shortcuts, and how to install certificates which I picked up on the internet and this mail group. Wes -Original Message- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 16, 2013 7:44 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hi All, My company is evaluating two different Windows installer solutions, WiX and Nullsoft installer (NSIS). I was wondering if anyone has had experience with both, and could weigh in on the pros and cons, benefits, limitations, etc. Thanks, Nick -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS
On 16/04/2013 23:44, Nick Miller wrote: My company is evaluating two different Windows installer solutions, WiX and Nullsoft installer (NSIS). I was wondering if anyone has had experience with both, and could weigh in on the pros and cons, benefits, limitations, etc. You might think XML in WiX is bad, but this is the sort of code you get in NSIS unless you use one of the libraries (from http://nsis.sourceforge.net/CharStrip_%26_StrStrip:_Remove_character_or_string_from_another_string): Exch $R0 #char Exch Exch $R1 #in string Push $R2 Push $R3 Push $R4 StrCpy $R2 -1 IntOp $R2 $R2 +1 StrCpy $R3 $R1 1 $R2 StrCmp $R3+8 StrCmp $R3 $R0 0 -3 StrCpy $R3 $R1 $R2 IntOp $R2 $R2 +1 StrCpy $R4 $R1$R2 StrCpy $R1 $R3$R4 IntOp $R2 $R2 -2 Goto -9 StrCpy $R0 $R1 Pop $R4 Pop $R3 Pop $R2 Pop $R1 -- Bruce Cran -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
