{"id":197,"date":"2007-04-21T14:24:19","date_gmt":"2007-04-21T13:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/?p=197"},"modified":"2007-04-21T14:24:19","modified_gmt":"2007-04-21T13:24:19","slug":"more-windows-installer-confusion-managed-code-custom-actions-a-no-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/197-more-windows-installer-confusion-managed-code-custom-actions-a-no-no.html","title":{"rendered":"More Windows Installer confusion: managed code custom actions a no-no"},"content":{"rendered":"

People who should know say not to use managed code custom actions in your Windows Installer setups. Like Rob Mensching of Wix<\/a> fame who says<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

…today the Windows Installer does not support managed code CustomActions and the general direction appears to be to try to reduce the need for CustomActions overall.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read the blog entry for the reasons. The strange thing is, Visual Studio 2005 has specific support for managed code custom actions; there is an Installer class and an MSDN walkthrough on how to use it<\/a>. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Now, I have always avoided managed code custom actions anyway, but only from instinct. Windows Installer setups are problematic enough as it is; adding .NET Framework dependency seems unnecessary. Mensching’s post above explains why it is also error-prone. See also Aaron Stebner’s post from March 2005<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

… in summary, I strongly encourage you to not use managed code in your product setup.  I realize that some teams do this here at Microsoft, but please don’t use our bad (in my opinion) examples to justify doing so in your own setup….<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Presuming these guys are right, might it not be wise for the Visual Studio folk to remove support for managed code custom actions from the product? A point of confusion is that the managed installer class works with a utility called InstallUtil<\/a> which is distinct from the Windows Installer; in fact, I believe that Visual Studio setup projects which include managed code custom actions actually call InstallUtil.<\/p>\n

I suggest Delphi<\/a> as a handy alternative, if you would rather avoid Visual C++.<\/p>\n

Finally, I hear many good things about Wix<\/a>, the free XML-based authoring too for Windows Installer setups. If you are embarking on a new setup project it is worth a look.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Technorati tags: msi<\/a>, installer<\/a>, custom actions<\/a>, wix<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People who should know say not to use managed code custom actions in your Windows Installer setups. Like Rob Mensching of Wix fame who says: …today the Windows Installer does not support managed code CustomActions and the general direction appears to be to try to reduce the need for CustomActions overall. Read the blog entry … Continue reading More Windows Installer confusion: managed code custom actions a no-no<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-software-development","category-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}