Is there some reason you can't get the bootstrapper to run the redist, vcredist_x86.exe? Phil Wilson ________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris Bardon Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 6:37 AM To: Rob Mensching; Mike Dimmick; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Consensus about CRT/MCF merge modules? Well, for the apps I'm building installers for, we've already decided against static linking, so we need to deploy the DLLs somehow. In the past, we've just included the merge modules using installshield, which I believe deploys the DLLs to the system32 directory, but I've also tested with including a private copy of the DLLs, and this also appears to work. I'm not sure if this is a permitted option though. When installing a merge module, is there a way to specify the module's install directory? For example, if I want to install the CRT MSM from VS 2005, I can put something like this in: <Merge Id="crt.B22E6F9A-D396-4F96-84D9-A822C63B9994" Language="1033" DiskId="1" SourceFile="C:\Program Files\Common Files\Merge Modules\Microsoft_VC80_CRT_x86.msm"/> Since this is under a "directory" tag though, I don't know where it'll install the files. The module default should be the system32 directory, shouldn't it? ________________________________ From: Rob Mensching [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 8:44 AM To: Mike Dimmick; Chris Bardon; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: RE: [WiX-users] Consensus about CRT/MCF merge modules? Agreed. However, based on early reports I'm not sure that pushing patches into WinSxS is really working due to the complexity that is the CustomActions to work around bugs in WinXP. The ideas behind Fusion are interesting but the complexity of the system has made it difficult to verify and for users to truly understand it. Personally, I prefer a model where a patch to a shared binary has the ability to update that binary everywhere (not that I can get anyone in Microsoft to agree with me, so maybe I'm just confused <smile/>). From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike Dimmick Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 12:56 PM To: Rob Mensching; 'Chris Bardon'; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Consensus about CRT/MCF merge modules? However, with static linking you have the servicing problem - if there's a security issue in the CRT (not unknown) or in MFC, you will have to rebuild your application to pick up the fix, then rerelease your application. By contrast, if using the WinSxS versions, Microsoft can ship an update directly to end-users (either as an updated assembly with the same version number, but different file version number, or as an additional assembly with a newer version number plus a policy binding). I have to admit looking at how the VS2005 CRT merge modules work and being a bit confused as to why they're configured to do something different on Vista (not just using MsiAssembly/MsiAssemblyName tables) especially as they were released over a year before Vista was. Using a private copy of the DLLs in your application directory is also a possibility but I don't think this is recommended (or even permitted?) for a final distribution. It still has the servicing problem but not the problem of having to rebuild the application or having the large binaries. -- Mike Dimmick ________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rob Mensching Sent: 16 March 2007 16:35 To: Chris Bardon; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Consensus about CRT/MCF merge modules? I'm not quite yet ready to make this a "recommendation" but I'm currently leaning towards statically linking the libraries directly. I'm seeing hints that the WinSxS/Fusion stuff they did for these libraries in VS2005 has some seriously bad repercussions when it comes to patching and some possibly strange behavior on Vista. It's a research project I'm doing slowly... For the WiX toolset, we statically link to the CRT (MFC, haven't done that since I wrote Orca <grin/>) to minimize our dependencies on the machine. That makes the binaries a bit bigger but it is worth it to not have to worry about "Is the WinSxS store updated at X point in time in my install?" From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris Bardon Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 9:20 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [WiX-users] Consensus about CRT/MCF merge modules? Looking through the archives, there appear to be a couple of ways to include things like the CRT and MFC redistributables in an installer. Some have advocated including the DLLs directly, which seems to go against the concept of having a redistributable MSM to link against. I tried building with the Microsoft CRT msm that comes with VS 2005, and got a long list of warnings from light. Is there a "recommended" method for dealing with these kinds of dependencies? Chris ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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