Hello, First of all, overall the WiX toolset is quite useful. The ability to deploy the resulting MSI's via active directory, and the fact that for the most part the uninstall section write itself (as I've dubbed Installer Garbage collection) caused me to switch from the Nullsoft Installer System despite the fact that it has many more extensions and features.
However, I have one complaint. The way WiX handles file permissions is a bit obtuse. This would be forgivable if the documentation was clear, which it is not. I am talking about WiX 2.0 as it appears things behave differently in 3.0. The problem is simple. If you put a Permission element inside a CreateFolder element, and presumably any other supported element, the Folder ceases to inherit its parents ACLs. The way to fix this is to link the wixca.wixlib file into the msi and set the Attribute Extended="Yes" which apparently changes the whole underlying mechanism that msi handles permissions and gives you alot more features. This took me far to long to figure out and I would liek to fix that by proposing some changes to the documentation. If the person in charge of documentation oks the verbiage and would like me to submit a proper patch to the documentation source file I will gladly do that if asked. This all applies to WiX version 2. Here are the changes they all apply to the page describing the Permission element: Remarks Section (Or append to the bottom of the Description) It should be noted that there are two internal storage mechanisms for storing permissions for a Registry, File, or CreateFolder element. The default is the LockPermissions Table. The main drawback of using this method is that there is no way to inherit the objects parent ACLs. This may be undesirable for many instances. If you wish to use the newer SecureObject The description for the attribute Append This attribute is valid for Files only. It allows the given user to add data to the given file.(It is important that this description is placed here because otherwise users might be under the impression that append means append these acls to the inherited ones). Regards, Justin Dearing ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys-and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ WiX-devs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-devs
