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Why use Windows Installer XML (WiX) through VDPROJ?

Why use Windows Installer XML (WiX) when we have the built-in MSI MSI installer?

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5 answers

The introduction of the WiX tutorial provides a basic idea of ​​the benefits of WiX over other installation development tools (including VS configuration projects):

  • declarative approach
  • unlimited access to Windows Installer
  • source code instead of GUI-based information gathering
  • full integration into the application to build processes
  • possible integration with development application
  • team development support, both internal and external
  • free open source

Hope this helps.

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It would take me a few hours to talk about everything that I hate about VDPROJ. I will not, because in my (expert) opinion the law has already been settled, that EVERYTHING sucks. If your installation is so simple that you did not notice any problems, then make my guess and stick to it. But if you are already faced with a tool trying to get it to do what it does not, then take my advice and quickly release it for WiX.

10 things I hate in VDPROJ

  • MSBuild support. Of course, you can call devenv from the command, but that is not so good.
  • No disclosure of critical components concept. Each file / reg-key is a key file of its own component.
  • It is not possible to completely exclude automatic dependency scanning.
  • Labels are always advertised.
  • Unable to describe the service.
  • It is not possible to describe many things that lead to overuse of custom actions.
  • It is not possible to precisely control the planning / execution of user actions. Too abstract.
  • The abstraction is incorrect. Deferred CAs are planned with an avatar that breaks on Vista.
  • Various restrictions lead you to the path of massaging the built-in MSI during postbuild to circumvent all restrictions. Results in very poor assembly automation mechanisms.
  • Module merge catalog tables are invalid.
  • 100 other things to suck that I don’t remember right now.
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Visual Studio deployment packages can only be created by visual studio. They cannot be built using simple MSBuild command lines, which makes them less ideal for building servers, for example.

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All of the above answers included most of the annoying features of Visual Studio installation projects (.VDPROJ), one thing that most people have missed.

. The VDPROJ file format is such that if we make a small change to one record, it completely rewrites all the records within which it does not allow merging the changes from 2 different branches.

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  • Some of us do not want to use / cannot use the .NET installer.
  • Some of us do not want to install Visual Studio to distribute a program written, say, in Borland Delphi. WiX and .NET have nothing to do with each other.
  • WiX provides a much more comprehensive feature set than the .NET installer.
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/1306888/

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