why no msi installer anymore?

[aaa3]

Hy! ive noticed tt just a few rels earlier a new feat was MSI installers. i thought, cool, now upgrades etc will be handled so nice for ever in to the future.. only to have it disappear just after introduction! (:()

[rkirkendall]

I'm also disappointed by the lack of an MSI installer...hope one is released soon, as I vastly prefer uVNC to every other one I've tried, but I need the .msi for Group Policy deployments/updates.

[Oliver]

Folks, please keep it real. Being a FLOSS developer myself I know that it may seem odd to you, but we spend much of our spare time for the benefit of others already. And we have to set priorities, too. Nothing keeps anyone from slapping up a proper WiX-based MSI installer and donating it to the project, does it?

When people tend to donate, they donate money. But it's not money that is the scarce resource. I for one have a full time job. Time is the scarce resource.

Supporting other users here on the forum is one way you can donate time, too. But donating time in the form of written and tested code, be it for the core of the program or for the setup is equally valuable if not more. Money comes third or fourth to me. Until recently it wouldn't have been enough to cover for hosting anyway.

So consider donating your time. WiX is also something the resourceful admin can learn. It doesn't take a C/C++ programmer.

[rkirkendall]

Sorry, but...why the hostility? A simple "I have to set priorities, and the MSI installer didn't make the cut" would have done the trick, there's no need to jump down our throats just for asking...it wasn't mentioned anywhere, so we had no way of knowing if it was intentionally omitted, or if it slipped through the cracks, or if one could be expected a little down the road.

Now that that's out of the way...thank you for drawing my attention to WiX - I had never managed to find a worthwhile free MSI packager, and this one looks promising. I'll be taking a go at it as time permits (as I, too, have a full-time job), and if I get something useable put together I would be happy to share it with others, or to provide it to you at uVNC if you wanted to distribute it as an unofficial setup package.

[Oliver]

Sorry, but...why the hostility?

No hostility was intended and I'm not sure how it could be construed as such.

Be that as it is: I am not the maintainer of UVNC, that'd be Rudi and Sam. Rudi currently took a break because of family matters and as for Sam I don't know. Haven't talked to him in ages - I think. I'm just telling you how this looks from the other side (the side of the FLOSS project owner ). If you took offense from that, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend - but I did, in fact, intend to raise awareness. Most of us working on FLOSS have a full time job, so the bottleneck resource is usually time, not money.

A simple "I have to set priorities, and the MSI installer didn't make the cut" would have done the trick, there's no need to jump down our throats just for asking...it wasn't mentioned anywhere, so we had no way of knowing if it was intentionally omitted, or if it slipped through the cracks, or if one could be expected a little down the road.

Rudi is the better addressee for this question, but as mentioned he won't be able to answer it any time soon (he wasn't very specific about the time frame of his absence).

Now that that's out of the way...thank you for drawing my attention to WiX - I had never managed to find a worthwhile free MSI packager, and this one looks promising. I'll be taking a go at it as time permits (as I, too, have a full-time job), and if I get something useable put together I would be happy to share it with others, or to provide it to you at uVNC if you wanted to distribute it as an unofficial setup package.

Quite frankly I think Rudi may be willing to make it an official one. As for the WiX matters I have some experience myself and could probably name one or two contacts who are way beyond me with their knowledge about WiX (if they're willing to contribute time). If it gives you anything, I can give you what I did some time ago for LinkIconShim, for which I authored the MSI and wrote a wrapper (NSIS-based) around the 32bit and 64bit MSIs. On my homepage you can find my contact. My email address is also my Jabber ID.

[Rudi De Vos]

VS 2012 ( new Microsoft compiler) removed the deployment project (msi).
Instead they push you to download installshield lite ( the lite version is to limited, it doesn't allow you to do anything).
The price for the full version is to high...
The removal of the required software in the new compiler is the reason i didn't created any msi.

If someone has an idea or already made something with a freeware application please let me know.
The msi generator need to be able to differentiate between OS's, and select exe based on the OS.

[Oliver]

If someone has an idea or already made something with a freeware application please let me know.
The msi generator need to be able to differentiate between OS's, and select exe based on the OS.

Rudi, I strongly suggest to consider WiX. For example the MS Office installer has been authored with it. To be exact the whole WiX project was spawned by members of the Office team at MS. I will ask one of my friends who is much more proficient than I to lend a hand with it. We'll see how he responds. Will talk to him tomorrow.

I have yet to encounter a single other MSI authoring tool (other than manual creation or using Orca) that does the job the way Windows Installer was designed to do things. All of the commercial and other tools seem to "cheat" in a sense, although they will all pass the ICE tests.

[Prisma]

With WIX you can do everything you need, you can use every hook the windows installer offers you. But It has no GUI. The only GUI I know is WixEdit. I tested this tool and found some bugs within minutes. So... for sure you can edit the XML files needed for WIX yourself. But this is hard work to do.

Possibly it is no bad idea using Installshield Lite and tweaking the msi with Orca afterwards. If it's technical possible.

[Oliver]

Good news, [user=3]said friend[/user] and colleague said he would chime in on this and contribute a WiX-based installer.

With WIX you can do everything you need, you can use every hook the windows installer offers you. But It has no GUI. The only GUI I know is WixEdit. I tested this tool and found some bugs within minutes. So... for sure you can edit the XML files needed for WIX yourself. But this is hard work to do.

Which prompts me to ask whether you have done any serious projects with WiX? It's not only possible (living proof is the MS Office installer ... and don't tell me that's a trivial installer), it is way more compatible with any version control system, because it uses text files instead of binary blobs to store the information and you do not by any means need a GUI to do anything in WiX. It would be news to me if you did need a GUI to do anything useful.

Anyway there are more projects and I have used WiXEdit in the past, but dropped it for I have more control with the XML than I have with the GUI. Admittedly having a GUI makes it more convenient to author dialogs. But whoever thinks that the dialogs are much more than an interface to actions for which other sequences exist (admin install, no GUI install) hasn't done anything with WiX

Other related projects:

• old list of one of the authors of WiX
• WiXGUI
• WarSetup (oft overlooked), also on SF.net

Having a fancy or "special" GUI design can be nice. Having a properly authored MSI is waaaaay cooler. Ask your admin.

To conclude: the argument about the WiX toolset having no GUI is similarly moot at the claim that one can only develop software with an IDE. Both MFC and WTL provide no GUI designers either and yet the majority of Windows applications uses those two frameworks, does it not?

Possibly it is no bad idea using Installshield Lite and tweaking the msi with Orca afterwards. If it's technical possible.

The tweaking of those systems that cheat (I mentioned it above) can be hideously difficult. The reason being that some (and in some cases much) of the "logic" is done in scripts. However, the exact intention of Windows Installer from the beginning was to provide support for removal even if the product itself doesn't work anymore (e.g. after a system upgrade). The scripted and binary custom actions in those commercial products violate that idea. They literally try to introduce their own logic where the logic is already inside Windows Installer and the MSI database merely contains the data used as parameters to the predefined actions. That's why it's best to stick with the default options whereever possible (although we know already we have to use DIFx for the driver in UltraVNC).

I've used both WISE and InstallShield (the former I still have to use on occasion) and the single nice thing I can say about WISE is that its project files can be accessed with the same SQL queries that you can for accessing MSI databases. This means, yes, you can access the MSIs once done and you can edit the projects automated from the command line. Just like you can do with even less problems in WiX. But the parts you can edit are limited to the records in the MSI tables. You cannot edit the WISE script blobs, not easily at least.

[Prisma]

Which prompts me to ask whether you have done any serious projects with WiX?

I'd say a project with worldwide more than 500 enterprise customers and a cashflow of nearly a million dollar the year is a serious project.

and you do not by any means need a GUI to do anything in WiX

I never said this

the argument about the WiX toolset having no GUI is similarly moot at the claim that one can only develop software with an IDE

I'm a big fan of Wix, it's the tool that should be used for a uVNC MSI. But dealing with XML seems for me to be not as convenient as using a scripting language like NSIS or INNO and debugging capabilities. But it has to be done!

So, thanks you to your college.

[Oliver]

Which prompts me to ask whether you have done any serious projects with WiX?

I'd say a project with worldwide more than 500 enterprise customers and a cashflow of nearly a million dollar the year is a serious project.

I'd say it is, yep. So you did that with WiX as was part of the question? Mind to share the name (and/or link) of your product? I'm genuinely curious.

I'm a big fan of Wix, it's the tool that should be used for a uVNC MSI. But dealing with XML seems for me to be not as convenient as using a scripting language like NSIS or INNO and debugging capabilities. But it has to be done!

*g* my experience with InnoSetup is - euphemistically speaking - limited. NSIS I use frequently, but the syntax trips me up each time. It's powerful, but the syntax and its limitations are a real downer every time I need to work with it. I'm just trying to get across that WiX would provide a clean solution compatible for years to come and with low maintenance effort once it's authored.

[sfreemanoh]

The downloads page only has an .exe download, no .msi download. Did they stop releasing it in .msi for a reason? I'm trying to automate an install (and uninstall of previous versions), and it would be a helluva lot easier if it was in .msi form, since I don't have a package creator.

[Oliver]

The downloads page only has an .exe download, no .msi download. Did they stop releasing it in .msi for a reason? I'm trying to automate an install (and uninstall of previous versions), and it would be a helluva lot easier if it was in .msi form, since I don't have a package creator.

I merged your post into this thread which discusses the very same topic.

[sfreemanoh]

Does anyone know if any progress has been made on getting a msi installer created yet?

Edit: This is no longer an issue. I was able to get it scripted using a batch file. Below is how I set mine up, if anyone else needs help.

Code: Select all

:: Just in case, I'm stopping this service name, which is for an old version of VNC
net stop winvnc
:: Again, this stops the service, which was used by at least the last version of UltraVNC
net stop uvnc_service
:: This uninstalls UltraVNC 1.0.9.6.2, using a copy of the .msi installer I have on our network
msiexec.exe /uninstall \\<path>\VNC\UltraVnc_10962_x86.msi /passive
:: This installs 1.1.8.0 with a copy of the exe I have on the network, using the referenced .inf file for the install options
\\<path>\VNC\ultravnc_1_1_8_x86_setup.exe /silent /loadinf=\\<path>\VNC\ultravnc_install.inf
:: This imports the registry settings we want enabled using the referenced .reg file
regedit.exe /s \\<path>\VNC\orl_winvnc3.reg

[Oliver]

I edited your post so the .cmd file can be copied&pasted.

Also, no, I think he didn't start any serious efforts as of yet. Will bug him again today. Otherwise you can send him a PM, see the post where I mentioned him first. The link to his profile is included.