tl;dr I'm removing support for binary .wixouts and .wixpdbs (*not* .wixlibs)
from WiX v4.0 unless someone comes up with a good reason to keep them. <smile/>
Binary .wixlibs are immensely useful. For example, they are vital to the way
extensions work out. However, binary .wixouts, .wixmsps and .wixpdbs are of
questionable value. There is a way to get all your binaries into a .wixpdb so
that you don't need to original MSI when patching, however this only works for
reasonably sized MSIs and is not at all optimal for anything. I'd rather us fix
the patching scenario by allow the original MSIs to be provided (which is
essentially what everyone does with admin images today).
For history, the binary .wixouts were created way back in the day when Derek
had the idea that he could archive the results of an Office build in a .wixout.
I don't think it worked out well in the end (because the process of creating
the cabs is so slow and getting stuff back out is similarly painful... not to
mention it can't handle more than 2GB of data).
Anyway, I'm planning to remove the functionality because it creates a mess of
the code for saving these file formats and that is the type of stuff I'm fixing
in WiX v4.0. Let me know if you have a specific reason why I shouldn't remove
the code. <smile/>
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