> Bob Arnson wrote: > [snip] > > Running arbitrary code during installation is bad. It's > self-reg, except > worse. The entire design of MSI is based on the idea of > describing your > setup and letting MSI interpret the description. Running code > is bad and > should be avoided whenever possible.
I agree. Unfortunately, I have to live in the real world and things have to get installed. I can't wait for Windows Installer and/or WiX to provide support for XYZ. It's particularly frustrating when I see the XYZ team at Microsoft has already provided an XYZInstaller class. > > Don't all custom actions have the potential to break > reference counting? > > Why use the reference counting argument against one custom > action but > > not others? > > > Yes they do -- and QuietExec is often abused. But there's a > difference > between running arbitrary code in a CA and running a well-designed CA > whose operations are described via data in tables in the package. Are you saying that it's impossible to create a good Installer based Installer class? > > Quite simply, it's hard to do good CAs. Even if you were to > argue that > there's too much coding overhead to do declarative setup, > it's hard to > argue against uninstall and rollback CAs. Yet often it's exactly that I'm not arguing against Uninstall or Rollback, the Install class provides virtual methods for both of those. > kind of resilience that people skip when writing one-off CAs. > We see it > all the time, even inside Microsoft. (That's why "but VS does > it" isn't > much of an excuse.) > > Installer classes have way too much momentum and too many supporters > > within Microsoft to be ignored, it's time for WiX and > Windows Installer > > to figure out how to support them. > > > Or lobby the supporters to come to their senses. That's fine with me, who do I start with? I just need some direction from Microsoft. Right now, I have the PowerShell team saying "use these Installer based classes to install your Cmdlets" but the Windows Installer/WiX people are saying "Yuck, don't use that crap!". What am I supposed to do? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys -- and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
