Two things: 1) You should never have custom actions for things that Windows Installer can do natively. If you have install actions for creating and starting services, that is wrong. Use the ServiceInstall/ServiceControl tables instead. Same goes for registering Dll's, creatin shortcuts, writing to the registry and so on. I've seen these anti-patterns to the worst degree ( at one point we had 1500 custom actions ) and they were all typically because the developer didn't understand the declarative nature of MSI or they were using tools ( VDPROJ ) that didn't expose the underlying capabilities. 2) When the time comes that you really need custom actions, the .NET replacement for InstallUtil is Deployment Tools Foundation and is included in WiX 3.5. http://blog.deploymentengineering.com/2008/05/deployment-tools-foundation-dtf-custom.html --- Christopher Painter, Author of Deployment Engineering Blog Have a hot tip, know a secret or read a really good thread that deserves attention? E-Mail Me
--- On Tue, 5/10/11, Srivatson Tirumalai <srivatson.tiruma...@citrix.com> wrote: From: Srivatson Tirumalai <srivatson.tiruma...@citrix.com> Subject: [WiX-users] InstallUtil.exe alternatives To: "wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net" <wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net> Date: Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 2:00 PM Hi, Is there a good alternative for installutil.exe in general available in Wix? We have a number of places in our installers where we have to invoke installutil.exe via a custom action for running the installer components in the assembly. One of the main problems in invoking InstallUtil.exe via a custom action is that it results in the ugly DOS windows appearing in the middle of setup. I do not want to use heat/tallow etc. I am looking for some kind of Wix extension. Is there any good solution available in Wix for this? Thanks, -Srivatson ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Achieve unprecedented app performance and reliability What every C/C++ and Fortran developer should know. Learn how Intel has extended the reach of its next-generation tools to help boost performance applications - inlcuding clusters. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-dev2devmay _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Achieve unprecedented app performance and reliability What every C/C++ and Fortran developer should know. Learn how Intel has extended the reach of its next-generation tools to help boost performance applications - inlcuding clusters. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-dev2devmay _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
