1. Sorry, I missed the subtly of your point. I'm basically on board with you in this case. I don't know why the IIS team had to go off and create a custom data store. I understand what COM was trying to accomplish but their registration is pretty brutal. I don't understand why the Event/Performance team had to go off and completely change the way event logs and perf counters are handled in Vista. However, I know that they did and we are stuck trying to keep up with it.
2. I used to be one of those Office developers (long while back) and know a few of them that are still there. They have a pretty solid grasp of the Windows Installer and how to use it and, personally, I think they've done pretty well by it. Of course, I am biased because I often point at Office as a team that follows many of the setup development best practices. They have distributed setup development across their whole organization. They fight to minimize custom actions and (I think) have eradicated SelfReg. They are attempting upgrades and patching before their first Beta. Things like that go a long way toward getting the installation for your product right and trust me Office is one complex install. <smile/> PS: I always find it interesting when people talk about "Microsoft" as one single entity. Microsoft is a company made up of a great many smaller organizations that all contribute into some larger business group. It is only the fact that those business groups report their earnings as a single entity that there is a thing called Microsoft. <smile/> I have found it far more productive to go address concerns with the appropriate small organizations that deliver the particular technology than to blame Microsoft as a whole. -----Original Message----- From: Friedrich Dominicus [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 23:06 To: Rob Mensching Cc: Kelly Leahy; Neil Enns; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Create EXE wrapper around my MSI? Rob Mensching <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I think that's rather unfair. I do not understand the problem that > Colin is having. There really haven't been enough details (or I > may have missed them) about what is being registered, how it is being > registered or what the whole thing is doing. At this point in time, > it sounds like there is something wrong in the code or the actual > registration on Vista. > > Blaming the complexity of COM registration on installation > technology is also rather unfair. COM registration is complex. > COM registration documentation is poor. Debugging COM registration > errors is painful. None of that has anything to do with the fact that > installation technologies are responsible for writing registry keys > that are supposed to make COM work. I did not attackt the tools. I attacked the need to use them. I know that the whole COM stuff just can be thought of by http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html And Microsoft does a remarkable good job on creating complexity, just to sell you a few year later their new "simple approach". > > If you're going to rant, at least attack the right technology. > <smile/> Please read my mail, I said for what do we need such complex installation stuff? Because Microsoft dictates it. The tool-builders just have to follow... In the first line there should be no need for such stuff, I just I wished how much it took the Office teams to get the installers. Do they got it right in all it's glory, I doub it very much and those are well paid programmers.... Regards Friedrich ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users