We have a "suite" of two programs, much like Office has Word and Excel. We determine if the user needs program A or B o both based on some questions. We would like to have a common installer to ask this questions, and install common files, then download and install the individual programs accordingly.
Both programs have different update cycles, so we would like to check for updates per program and ideally also updates to the installer itself (for changes in the common files).
Which would be the best approach for this?
I have tried the individual programs to be downloadable components but this approach doesn't handle new version of just one program.
As of 8.x, there is no special "suite of installers" feature in install4j. I would recommend to create a separate project for the suite and add the single installers to the distribution tree in separate downloadable installation component. Instead of the "Install files" action, add "Run executable" actions for each product that was selected by the user.
If you would like unattended installations for each product, you can pass the arguments
-q -splash "Installing product X"
to get a progress bar for each installer.
Related
I never needed to add an installer to my programs but I always wondered about Microsoft Installer (.msi or .exe installers). What tasks do they do?
They make the life easier for the user, but that's not all to it. I know they also deal with the Operating System in several aspects.
But before learning about installers themselves. I feel there's a gap on my knowledge on some prerequisite subjects related to this.
So, which subjects would they be? And where can I learn them? (Books, articles, videos, courses, ...)
And to be clear I'm not asking about how to create an installer (I can do it with Visual Studio or tools like Install Shield). But I'm more concerned about the prerequisite subjects I need to learn to proper understand and handle installers. Specially in what areas do they deal with the Operating System?
Installers are nothing special. They give this impression because they do a bunch of weird things that don't seem accessible to other apps. The .msi and .exe installers will self extract (take a portion of the file itself and copy it to another file) or they will download other files from a server. The .exe and .msi files are thus normal executables that the OS recognizes due to their file extension as files that it should execute.
Each file extension has a default app to open them. When you open a file, its default app is started and the path to that file is passed as a string to the main function of the app. That way, the app can parse the file and show the content of it to you (similarly to compiling a program).
Other things like creating desktop icons are available with some dlls native to Windows and some other libraries that call in those dlls for higher level languages like C#. Quite simply, you create an average window like any other, you extract the app being installed from the same file to Program Files and you're good minus some other minor details. The apps available are really just to make your life easier.
I have minimal exposure to RPM, Windows installer mechanics, and WIX. That said, I'm interested in making a cross-platform installer tool (Linux, Windows) that supports upgrading and downgrading (versiona and patches) of my own product. I don't believe this is a topic to be approached lightly; I would like to learn the science of the art (or the art of the science). If I succeed, and build a minimally successful installer tool, it would have these features:
does not depend on a platform-specific tool (such as Windows Installer).
reads XML or a declarative syntax to fulfill installation requirements.
attempts to minimize steps to upgrade or downgrade one of my products (rather than requiring a complete uninstall and re-install).
does not require knowledge of interim product versions, in order to jump versions (i.e. can upgrade one of my products from version 1 to version 3, without passing through version 2).
I'm convinced that "the key" to achieving this goal is by seeing versions as a "point A to point B" problem, which implies that A and B are described by two XML "version" documents that hold info about all the parts and actions (files, or platform specifics such as registry entries). My installer tool would "join" or compare the two documents and determine a minimal set of changes to transform A into B. To some extent, I believe this is precisely what Windows Installer does.
Of course there are further complexities, but that is the point of this post. Where is "the bible" of information on this topic? Remember, I want to make my own installer - not use a platform-specific one. For those who care, my products are usually written in C++ or C#.
Or perhaps I should study something like Steam which is cross-platform and has "automated game updates" as part of its capabilities. In my case, the problem of online deployment is already handled. It is just the final installation step I'm examining. Does Steam use native installers (such as an MSI)? If yes, then that is not what I'm looking for.
In short, what path should I pursue to become somewhat competent on the science of this topic?
I'm not an expert and others can give you better answers but...
Don't declaratively list steps required to install your product - You'll end up making assumptions which will eventually prove wrong. Instead, you should be looking at defining the final state of the installation and let the installer worry about how to make that happen.
Another consideration is that being downgradable may involve huge complications depending on your product - Would it have to down-grade database schemas / file formats / ??? In short, every version of your app will need to be both fully forwards- and backwards-compatible (or at least fail gracefully). Also consider the scenario where V1 of your app stores settings in a file. V2 comes along and adds more settings. You downgrade to V1 - What should it do when changing settings? preserve the V2 settings? dump them? Do some of the V2 settings change the impact/meaning of the V1 settings? Are these decisions to be made by your app or your installer?
Anyway, all that aside, I'd say you need at the least:
A central server/farm with complete files for every version of your App and some API/Web Service which allows the installer to retrieve files/filesets/??? as appropriate (You may be able to tie this into a source control system like svn)
Some way of specifying the desired post-install state of the system in an environment-agnostic way (Think install paths - /usr/??? - should the map to C:\Users\??? or C:\Program Files on windows? Also don't forget it might be a 64-bit machine so it could be C:\Program Files (x86).
A very clever installer written for multiple platforms with as much code re-use as possible (Java, Mono, ???)
The installer should do (simply):
Determine the desired version of the product.
Download/read the appropriate manifest.
Compare the desired situation with the current situation (NB: What is currently on the local system, NOT what should be on the system according to the current version's manifest)
Generate a list of steps to reconcile the two, taking into account any dependencies (can't set file permissions before you copy the file). You can make use of checksums/hashing/similar to compare existing files with desired files - thus only downloading the files actually required.
Possibly take complete backups
Download/unpack required files.
Download/unpack 3rd party dependencies - Later .Net Framework Version/Similar
Perform install steps in atomic a manner as possible (at the very least keeping a record of steps taken so they can be undone)
Potentially apply any version-jump specific changes (up/down-grade db, config files, etc.)
verify installation as much as possible (checksums again)
None of this addresses the question of what to do when the installer itself needs upgrading.
A technique I've used on Windows is that the installer executable itself is little more than a wrapper with some interfaces which loads the actual installer dynamically at runtime - thus I can move files about/unload/reload assemblies, etc... from within a fixed process that almost never changes.
As I said above, I am definitely not an expert, just a novice who's done some of this myself. I sure you can get more complete answers from others but I hope this helped a little
We've decided to create a custom bootstrapper for our deployment solution. We are currently re-writing and re-designing our deployment strategy for all of our products. Sadly, none of us are deployment experts.
Here's what we have so far:
A. The MSI packages will be authored in InstallShield. We will use whatever feature Installshield offers (IIS integration, COM registration, Registry, etc). The dialog's created by InstallShield will not be used (that is what the bootstrapper is for). The MSIs will be installed silently.
B. Whenever we need to write CA's for stuff that InstallShield can't handle, we will be writing them in managed code (C#) using DTF. We will be creating a "Custom Action Framework" that will "standardize" how we use custom actions.
C. We will create a custom bootstrapper (the "setup.exe") in C# to "handle" the installation.
We have decided to go with a multiple MSI approach and use MSI transaction to "chain" the installation from the boostrapper (inspired from Office 2007 installer)
The boostrapper that we are envisioning to create is inspired from Visual Studio's and SQL Server's bootstrapper. The boostrapper will be responsible for the following:
Prerequisite installation: Each application require a pre-requisite. These pre-requisites are listed in an XML file placed on the same folder as the MSI (inspired from Office 2007 installer) along with other metadata. Depending on current state of the system, the boostrapper will decide which pre-requisite to be installed or not.
Feature selection: We are planning to structure the "internal" MSI's feature in such a way that it will not be appropriate to be displayed right away to the end-user. We will have feature labeled as "Core_Files", or "Vista_Only" or "64bit_Only". Depending on the metadata on the XML file (on item 1) and the target system, the bootstrapper will be responsible in "populating" a "feature tree" that the user can customize (also inspired from Office 2007 bootstrapper).
Pre-installation Checks: The bootstrapper will be responsible in checking if the system is ready to receive the installation. For instance, if a machine needs to reboot prior to installation or if the user needs to manually install a service pack, patch or a windows component. Anything that needs to be done that needs user intervention should be displayed here. Think of it as a check list (a listbox) with checks and exes. (Inspired from SQL server's bootstrapper). The "rules" will be written in C#.
Application Configuration: For application that needs to be "configured" prior to installation. These "parameters" (user configuration) will be passed to the respective MSI via MSI Properties.
Actual Installation: The bootstrapper will then perform the installation. Proper "transaction" should be observed when necessary. All "products" that should be grouped together shall be displayed as one product in Add/Remove Programs (by messing with the ARP entries). Also, proper progress shall be reported by each MSI being installed.
-- That's what we have so far.
I think there are a couple of out-of-the-box solutions for creating a custom bootstrapper like dotNetInstaller and BMG. We've look into it but it's not as flexible as we've hoped. There's also BURN but we're not sure if it's ready for primetime.
So here we are... we've decided to create our own custom bootstrapper.
Question:
Are we crazy? Shouldn't we be creating our own bootstrapper? Which ideas listed above are not realistic? Is there a better approach?
Any input regarding our situation will be greatly appreciated. Also, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
Frankly, Burn isn't going to be done for at least a year. You already have InstallShield and IMO it has the best off the shelf bootstrapper currently available. I'd scope your requirements back and make it fit the box. Pretty much everything I read from you can be done using InstallShield if you learn to push it to it's limits.
I would go for Burn anyway or some already existing solution.
I'm sure that after some time you'll face new problems that you can't now really imagine.
If you face them, that means that Burn's developers have already faced them and probably got them solved. If not, Burn has a large community that will fix the potential bug faster than you.
Focus on the software you're developing, not on writing installer/bootstrapper.
If I were in your shoes, I would give a burn a try. I'd get me a couple of days and see if it meets my requirements.
I thought this would be somewhere on the Web, but I couldn't Google it:
Given the complexity involved in creating an MSI package (compared to NSIS, InnoSetup, etc.), what would be a compelling reason to go through all the mess (using MSVS's crappy setup project wizard, learn a whole new langauge/ecosystem just to make the installer (WiX), or pay heavy license fees (InstallShield)) for the sake of making an MSI installer?
Would be nice to have real world opinions or experience (even to prove that MSI is really worthless) other than the obvious MSDN page, for instance :)
I don't think there is one prime advantage for all situations. Here are some things I like about it, vs other kinds of installers:
Install logic and code is contained in a database, which is in an accessible format.
I like this a lot when I'm debugging. Rather than rebuilding your installer, you can directly edit the database with a tool like Orca (free database editing download from MS), then run the install again to test your changes. Update your custom code, temporarily condition something out, change the order of operations, whatever you need to do.
Patching. The Installer service and its corresponding tools know how to create patches containing deltas of updated files, rather than complete files. It allows maintenance sizes to remain reasonable.
Administrative Images. The installer can create an administrative image. If you've generated patches, you can apply the patches to the administrative image, and new installations can then be run from the administrative image rather than the original installer. Like slipstreaming patches in OS images. If you're pushing your app out to a large number of machines, it's pretty cool to not need to push a bunch of patches out post-install.
Other interesting features include transforms, run from source, detect and repair, component sharing, and so on.
Take a look at this:
https://serverfault.com/questions/11670/advantages-of-using-msi-files
MSI (or ClickOnce) was required to obtain the Windows Vista Logo Program (Microsoft official certification). I believe this requirement was removed with Windows 7, but it's still easier to get certification with MSI (see here).
You don't need to buy any expensive 3rd party installer package though. If you're going for MSI, I suggest you use WIX and learn it. Once you're familiar with it, it works pretty well.
Another good read is:
Windows Installer: Benefits and Implementation for System Administrators
I've been a full time setup developer for 14 years. My first 7 years were InstallScript Setup.exe style projects and my last 7 years have been MSI based. At first I resisted MSI and then after 6 months of using it I became a true believer in how much better it is.
I'm pretty certain that there are enterprises that require MSI formats to remote bulk install an application on thousands of machines. However I don't deal with such organizations so don't know for certain.
People,
We have 4 or 5 utilities that work in conjunction with our application. These utilities are either .bat files, or VB apps, PowerBuilder, etc. I am trying to manage these utils in source control, and am trying to figure out a better way to assign versions to them. Right now, the developers use the version control's meta-data -- specifically label -- to store the version number of the tool.
My goal is to have individual InstallShield packages for each utility, and an easy means to manage and assign version numbers to these packages.
Would you recommend a separate .ini file with the info, or store the info in InstallShield .ism file itself, or just use the meta-data info from version control tool?
UPDATE:
I like the idea Orion. I have one concern though. The script that increments the version number... it can not be intelligent enough to increment Major number etc. right. e.g. if one of the utils has version 1.2.3 and we are at a point where the new version is 2.0.0. The script may not be able to handle this.
I think this has to do a lot with our branching techniques -- we don't have any. The folks thought since the utils are so small, the source may not need branches.
PowerBuilder in particular has a nice trick you can do to incorporate the build number from an ini file into the compiled application.
Details here: http://www.pbdr.com/pbtips/ex/autorev.htm
We have ini file inside source control that stores the build number and its value is used in our build scripts to determine what label to apply to the source tree after a successful build. Works very nicely for our needs. When we branch, we do have to manually kick the file to increment the proper number though.
I managed our build system at my last job, which seemed to have some parallels to what you're asking.
There were ~30 C++ projects which needed compiling, and various .NET/Java things, and the odd perl script.
This was all built on our build machine using NAnt - If I were doing it today I'd use rake, but the idea is the same.
We basically had an auto-incrementing build number which was stored in a version.txt file in the root of the repository.
Each time we did a build (automatically done each night, or also on-demand if neccessary) the script would increment this number and check the file back into source control.
All the other apps referenced this file for their version number, or for things which didn't support working like this, the script would set environment variables or perform other workarounds
I'm pretty sure that our installshield programs referenced an environment variable for their version number, but we deprecated them in favour of wix as installshield really did suck
in the case of visual studio, grep/replace the number within the .csproj files, and check them back in
Hope this gives you some ideas
Using the meta data from your version control system should keep things simpler. It's how your developers already use the system. There is no additional file to maintain. My personal experience has taught me to version the satellite applications with the same as version as the main app. K.I.S.S