4 ms·
I gave it a shot for a day recently but found it way harder to use than InstallShield or NSIS. Part of it was probably the broken documentation where half the l
by coffeeaddicted 13y ago
I gave it a shot for a day recently but found it way harder to use than InstallShield or NSIS. Part of it was probably the broken documentation where half the links just ended in nirvana. But I gave up when I learned you really have to add each single file one-by-one and the documentation even defended this as a feature.
- euroclydon 13y agoYou can use this Wix tool or command called Heat, which will automate the adding (and creating GUIDs) for a bunch of files. Really it's the underlying MSI target that's so painful, especially when you get into versioning. The OS wants to have detailed information on every file that is part of your installation. I think this is primarily for uninstallation purposes, but also for upgrades and who know what else. If I could get away with it, I'd just use NullSoft. It's like writing assembly, but it's so much simpler. With Wix/MSI, there were certain executables that I could never get it to run as part of the install process. The XML would look the same as other execute commands that worked, but I could never figure out why they didn't run.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- anton_gogolev 13y agoAmen. This can "kinda" be worked around with "heat.exe" (don't get me started on naming of tools in the toolchain), but even then you'll need to explicitly specify half a dozen command-line arguments (-ag -dr -cg -srd -scom -sreg -svb6 -sfrag) to make the thing work.
- powertower 13y agoSo how would one deal with projects that contain 1000s of files? Run a script to enumerate the files and populate a wix file? Zip up the different parts and have the installation process unzip them?
- rockin 13y agoThat's exactly how we did it. Our wix files where 90% created automatically by a script