Comments on: Windows Installer – are we seeing a new strategic direction? http://shieldmaster.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/windows-installer-%e2%80%93-are-we-seeing-a-new-strategic-direction/ A Weblog to share tips and techniques for working with InstallShield's setup authoring engine. Fri, 27 Nov 2009 05:39:34 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: shieldmaster http://shieldmaster.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/windows-installer-%e2%80%93-are-we-seeing-a-new-strategic-direction/#comment-42 shieldmaster Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:17:15 +0000 http://shieldmaster.wordpress.com/?p=79#comment-42 Thanks for the useful information! Appreciate it greatly. Charles Thanks for the useful information! Appreciate it greatly.
Charles

]]> By: Michael Urman (InstallShield) http://shieldmaster.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/windows-installer-%e2%80%93-are-we-seeing-a-new-strategic-direction/#comment-41 Michael Urman (InstallShield) Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:45:42 +0000 http://shieldmaster.wordpress.com/?p=79#comment-41 You're totally right about the complexity. While those of us working on InstallShield like to fantasize and argue that every setup developer should understand the rules of Windows Installer and the tradeoffs they're making for each choice, deep down we know that's never been realistic, and is getting less so. So I agree completely: aiming for simplicity is a great tactic when you can pull it off. Chained installs are great in theory, but they're still going to increase prerequisite complexity (is MSI 4.5 on your target system yet?) for a while. One other side comment; you mention the InstallShield prerequisite dialog prevents unattended installs. AFAIK that's never been the case when run from setup.exe. So long as you run setup with the /s parameter (and /v"/qn" for feature prerequisites in IS2009), it will install the prerequisites as silently as the prq itself allows. So make sure to specify a silent command line, or the prq itself may show dialogs. You’re totally right about the complexity. While those of us working on InstallShield like to fantasize and argue that every setup developer should understand the rules of Windows Installer and the tradeoffs they’re making for each choice, deep down we know that’s never been realistic, and is getting less so. So I agree completely: aiming for simplicity is a great tactic when you can pull it off. Chained installs are great in theory, but they’re still going to increase prerequisite complexity (is MSI 4.5 on your target system yet?) for a while.

One other side comment; you mention the InstallShield prerequisite dialog prevents unattended installs. AFAIK that’s never been the case when run from setup.exe. So long as you run setup with the /s parameter (and /v”/qn” for feature prerequisites in IS2009), it will install the prerequisites as silently as the prq itself allows. So make sure to specify a silent command line, or the prq itself may show dialogs.

]]>