Assuming the report about NSIS not using Windows Installer technologies is true, that should be enough to rule it out as far as I am concerned. Known logging details, known tools for removal/upgrading, etc. all make WI useful. Since it is sometimes arcane, that's where the usefulness of WiX comes in - I find its level of abstraction in its documentation to be about right. Compare with what we moved away from - Visual Studio set up projects. These always seemed to run into places where the documentation had crazy but useful gaps, or they would just fail mysteriously with no ease of finding help. For example, I migrated a setup project from VS2008 to 2010 and just got an HRESULT style error back with the project conversion. Why did this happen? A few hours of google foo and I said "enough is enough I'll move this one to WiX too". And I haven't looked back.
(Also, does NSIS cost anything? Don't forget the benefit/cost ratio :)) Keith Douglas Statistics Canada | 170 Tunney's Pasture Driveway, Ottawa ON K1A 0T6 Statistique Canada | 170, promenade Tunney's Pasture, Ottawa ON K1A 0T6 keith.doug...@statcan.gc.ca Telephone | Téléphone 613-951-4405 Facsimile | Télécopieur 613-951-1966 Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada -----Original Message----- From: Alain Forget [mailto:afor...@cmu.edu] Sent: April-17-13 9:39 AM To: 'General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset.' Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Perhaps all the arguments you need have already been mentioned in this thread? 1) Being technically proficient, perhaps he would understand the inherent costs of maintaining the mass of now NSIS code versus the relative conciseness of WiX (as mentioned by Rob). 2) Follow that up with an example of how long/how much it costs to convert one of the NSIS installers to WiX, and roughly figure out the savings over time of going WiX. 3) Finally, throw in the fact that NSIS hasn't been supported since 2009, while WiX is a very active and supportive open-source community. Even further, if he wants some time down the line, it would be possible to contact a consulting company to outsource the WiX installer infrastructure and add functionality to WiX, since one of the founders of WiX (*cough* Rob *cough, cough*) will soon be providing such a service. Then again, maybe you don't want to mention that last point, because it might put your job security at risk. :-P Alain -----Original Message----- From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] Sent: April 17, 2013 09:03 To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS Hey guys, thank you for all of your great responses. Allow me to provide a little background, over the past few weeks I have been learning Wix for a special project I worked on. I've gone through the tutorials, I've read the book by Nick Ramirez, and have been able to create a custom managed bootstrapper application. My company has many applications that use a few different installation technologies (mostly NSIS) and we are looking to standardize. I think Wix is awesome, and believe we should use it exclusively, so I guess my question is how do I sell this to the boss? Mind you, he is very technically proficient... -----Original Message----- From: Rob Mensching [mailto:r...@robmensching.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 7:53 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS I'm obviously biased but non-declarative installation technologies like NSIS are a complete non-starter for me. I don't want to write scripts that install files then have to remember write more scripts to uninstall those files. I had a couple consulting gigs to convert setups from NSIS. It amazed me how much code they maintained to just do the above. The .wxs files were usually smaller and far easier to maintain. Script based installs are just the wrong way to solve the problem, IMHO. On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 4:39 PM, Wesley Manning <wmann...@dynagen.ca> wrote: > Last time I looked NSIS hasn't been updated since 2009. I also > contemplated using NSIS. > > What attracted me to Wix is that it is based on MSI which (at the > time) you needed to get app Windows certified. And that it is XML > based which I knew. And the bootstrapper, burn, because I needed to > install .net framework, drivers, etc. > If you go with Wix I'll recommend the book: > http://www.packtpub.com/windows-installer-xml-3-6-developers-guide/book. > Bring you up to speed very fast on basics. Only thing it didn't have > for me was how to install drivers, advertised shortcuts, and how to > install certificates which I picked up on the internet and this mail group. > > Wes > > -----Original Message----- > From: Nick Miller [mailto:nmil...@livetechnology.com] > Sent: April 16, 2013 7:44 PM > To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. > Subject: [WiX-users] WiX vs NSIS > > Hi All, > > My company is evaluating two different Windows installer solutions, > WiX and Nullsoft installer (NSIS). I was wondering if anyone has had > experience with both, and could weigh in on the pros and cons, > benefits, limitations, etc. > > Thanks, > Nick > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of > advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs > for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. > Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis & visualization. > Get a free account! > http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of > advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs > for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. > Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis & visualization. > Get a free account! > http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter > _______________________________________________ > WiX-users mailing list > WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis & visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis & visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis & visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis & visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
