1. Agreed. I'm working on a more advanced chainer for the WiX toolset to hopefully ease a lot of this pain. Just doesn't exist today.
2. What was taking the majority of the build time? Were you batching up your compiles (passing multiple .wxs files to candle.exe)? Do you have shared cabinets, if so did you use the cabinet cache? If you can provide some data about what is slow in the build times then there may be things that we can do to help (including potentially improving the WiX toolset). 3. The Windows Installer does incur a bit of overhead because it tries harder for a "robust" install than a "fast" install. Chances that the user will end up in a hosed state are far less with the Windows Installer (assuming no poor CustomActions). The "robust" comes with some cost (like building the script for rollback). 4. Tradeoffs? Isn't this the way life works? <smile/> -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor Maslov Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 3:06 PM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? Yes, I'm asking myself whether it was a wise decision to move to MSI. It's not an internal install, it's retail product. We had our custom program in C++ and custom upgrade solution. It was working fine. Now problems I'm fasing with MSI and WiX: 1. This probably comes from my insufficient knowdge of these technologies, but each feature takes 3-4 times more time to implement than if I were writing it, for example, in C I might need to launch third party installs, under the same GUI umbrella, but I can't launch another Windows Installer package - so I need a complex bootstraper with GUI. 2. WiX build times, (mostly light.exe) are very big. To make multilanguage installs I have to build full installation for each language, and it may take a lot of time if we are taking about 10 languages, for example. 3. Install times are bigger. Yes, there are many things that are coming for free, when I use Windows Installer and WiX, but there are so many trade offs as well. Matthew Janulewicz-2 wrote: > > At the risk of sounding anti-wix (I'm very pro-wix!) you might ask > yourself if you need an installer at all. If you're not doing any kind > of upgrades, uninstalls, etc., and everything is content... Why not just > a DVD with a simple batch file that copies everything and creates > shortcut(s)? It can easily be done and in the case of something so big, > there is some overhead with any installer. It doesn't seem like this > case warrants the sophistication inherent in an .msi. > > I've worked in shops where all our installations were internal, and for > content we just pulled the goods right out of our source control tool. > It is a different kind of file copy, but a file copy none the less. We > saved a lot of time by not having to archive/compress huge files, etc. > > > -Matt > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor > Maslov > Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 2:16 PM > To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net > Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? > > > Thanks, > > That's exactly kind of info I needed. > > 1. Seems that -sh is a solution for me. I don't use Windows Installer > for > upgrades. It's always a full install. > > 2. I generate single WiX file with all source files listed there. All I > need > is to lay out files on dvd in the same order as they are listed in the > wix > source file? > > If I compress all files into a single cab, are they in the same order > as > in Sequence table? > In this case I'm good? > > > Igor > > > Mike Dimmick-2 wrote: >> >> The more components there are, the more checking has to be done (of >> KeyPaths) to determine what needs to be copied. You could potentially >> increase the number of files per component, but be aware that: >> >> - a component is only installed if its KeyPath is determined to be >> out-of-date (older file version, mismatched hash) >> - all files in a component are installed to the same directory >> - there are problems with adding and removing files from a component >> >> WiX always generates hashes for unversioned files, unless the -sh > switch >> is >> specified. However, if you do specify -sh, it also doesn't extract the >> version number, making the feature useless. There is no other way to >> override the hashing. This costs you time when building the MSI - > because >> the files going into the package must be hashed - and at install time, >> because the existing file must be hashed. If you're installing large > files >> this process may take a lot of time since it has to read the whole >> currently-installed file to decide whether to overwrite it. Whether > this >> is >> good or bad depends on the relative speed of the source and > destination >> media and whether they can be run in parallel. >> >> I'd always assumed that the creation timestamp was taken into >> consideration >> for an unversioned file, but re-reading the SDK's Default Versioning > Rules >> it appears that actually, last installed file wins, for unversioned > files >> (as long as the currently-installed file has not been modified). >> >> Compressing the files might improve transfer speed from the DVD; the >> overhead of decompressing is negligible on a modern system. The CAB >> compression scheme isn't particularly advanced and therefore doesn't > tax >> the >> processor. >> >> Another thing not often considered is the physical layout on the DVD. > I >> recall VS.NET 2003 taking a lot less time to install than VS.NET 2002 >> simply >> because the physical file layout was woeful for 2002: the CD drive was >> constantly seeking. Windows Installer installs the files in the > sequence >> listed in the Sequence column of the File table. It doesn't look like >> there's any way to control the Sequence in WiX - it simply lays out > the >> files in the order that the intermediate files are supplied to light > (for >> a >> wixlib, the order the wixobj files were supplied to lit), and within > that, >> the order they appeared in the source. >> >> -- >> Mike Dimmick >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Igor > Maslov >> Sent: 24 May 2007 19:55 >> To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net >> Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How to improve speed of installation? >> >> >> Hello everybody, >> >> Thank you very much for your advices. I tried several options but an > issue >> still remains. >> >> I was wondering if changing the way I organize components and media > can >> affect install speed. >> >> What will perform faster: >> >> 1. Having 1 component per file, or putting large number of files in a >> single >> component >> >> 2. Providing I install from DVD what is faster : uncompressed files or > cab >> . >> Note that big chunk of input files is already compressed. >> >> 3. Is there any overhead like CRC computation, or anything like > performed >> at >> "File Copy" >> stage that I could switch off. >> >> Thank you , >> Igor >> >> >> >> Igor Maslov wrote: >>> >>> This is probably more Windows Installer question than a WiX specific. >>> >>> I have an install with abot 3 GB of files. All it does is copying > files >>> and creating shortcuts. >>> >>> MSI file has tranforms for several languages, this localization > affects >>> only installer GUI, >>> set of files is language neutral and it's stored in separate cab > files >>> not >>> embedded in MSI. >>> >>> The speed of the installation phase is very slow. At the beginning of > the >>> installation, just before copying files >>> it sits there for 5 minutes. >>> >>> I wonder if there are any properties or settings I could use to > improve >>> speed of installation (and uninstall) >>> >>> Thank you >>> >>> >> >> -- >> View this message in context: >> > http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.ht > ml#a >> 10790358 >> Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. >> >> >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > - >> This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express >> Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take >> control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. >> http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ >> _______________________________________________ >> WiX-users mailing list >> WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users >> >> >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > - >> This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express >> Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take >> control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. >> http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ >> _______________________________________________ >> WiX-users mailing list >> WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users >> >> > > -- > View this message in context: > http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.ht > ml#a10792854 > Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > - > This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express > Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take > control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. > http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express > Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take > control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. > http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > > -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-improve-speed-of-installation--tf3780060.html#a10793666 Sent from the wix-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
