Those are all good questions and I dont have ideal answers. I can only tell you what we do.
We use ProgramFilesFolder\<our own directory> for the extract location and the files are left there until the user uninstalls the application. Im not so sure thats a good location but it works on all OSes because our installer requires admin privileges for various reasons. I believe MS Office uses C:\MSOCache. We document that you can delete this location if you are short of disk space but also warn that you need to run the uninstallation steps manually from ARP if you do so. Our distribution package, including prerequisites is also about half a GB. The uninstall is from a shortcut (if you care about Windows Logo Certification, you cant do that, last time we looked) that runs our custom chainer and that runs the MSI removal and then deletes the extraction directory. We did add RemoveFile/RemoveFolder elements to the MSI to remove the extraction directory but its awkward when you do major upgrades. The major upgrade is packaged as another [WinRar] self extracting archive. It unpacks to a different directory, runs the chainer and runs the upgrade and deletes the old SFX location. We dont do download on demand but thats in the plan for the future. The MS bootstrapper, that is run from the SFX, installs dot net. The dot net installer downloads most of the framework for you on demand. I am almost finished implementing an autoupate system using Indigo Rose's TrueUpdate for downloading and applying MSPs and later on major upgrade MSIs. That will add more fun to all of this :) That product might be worth looking at if you need some kind of downloader. Theres a 30 day trial. It all seems to work and we have a few thousand users since we released earlier this year. If you find better ways to do any of this, Im sure the list would be interested to hear what you did, even if everyones requirements differ. HTH, Pete. -----Original Message----- From: Ondrej Zarevucky [mailto:ondrej.zarevu...@fine.cz] Sent: 14 August 2009 12:15 To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Maintenance mode when installed from temp Is there any good location for this? How do you do proper uninstall? Does the MSI also deletes itself or do you leave the installation files on your users' computers? Does it work with Major Upgrades? I don't want to be like ATI/AMD who copies the whole drivers installation to C:\ATI\Support\... and leaves it there until the user deletes it manually :( Size of our installation package is about 100MB and as we move more programs to WiX/Windows Installer it will get bigger to approximately 500MB. I would also like to implement download on demand installation (user will get only small setup package which will download only files for the features selected by the user) which will need some "fixed" (will be saved in registry) location to download all required CAB files and leave them there for Maintenance. Ondrej Zarevucky Peter Shirtcliffe wrote: > The problem is that the cab is always stripped from the MSI (except on > Windows 7) when the MSI is installed and cached. Programs like MS > Office (and ours) store the installation MSI in a directory on the hard disk. > In our case, we dont let the user change the extraction directory and > extract to a well-known folder, rather than temp. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Ondrej Zarevucky [mailto:ondrej.zarevu...@fine.cz] > Sent: 14 August 2009 10:22 > To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. > Subject: [WiX-users] Maintenance mode when installed from temp > > Hi, > I'm trying to allow Maintenance mode (Repair and Modify) when the > installation was run from temporary location. > > I'm using 7zip packer, which unpacks the MSI, CAB files and > bootstrapper to temporary location and runs it from there. The problem > with installation Modification and Repair is that it requires source > CAB files which were already deleted. Also the user is presented with > confusing source path pointing to Temp... When I tried to embed the > CAB files into MSI it doesn't seem to solve the problem :( > > My current workaround is to disable running the Maintenance mode from > Add/Remove programs and require users to run the 7zip package again. > > Ondrej Zarevucky. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- > ------ > Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 > 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment > - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover > what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > > SDL PLC confidential, all rights reserved. > If you are not the intended recipient of this mail SDL requests and requires that you delete it without acting upon or copying any of its contents, and we further request that you advise us. > SDL PLC is a public limited company registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 02675207. > Registered address: Globe House, Clivemont Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 7DY, UK. > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal > Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration > and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application > coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------ Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
