What do you think about MSI wrappers? "Vadim Rapp" <nospam[ at ]sbcglobal.net> 11/20/2008 5:39:50 PM What do you think about using MSI wrappers, i.e. encapsulating setup.exe in MSI in order to deploy by GPO, or encapsulating MSI in order to specify some command-line parameters - when creating transform is for whatever reason not possible. I thought is quite bad idea since it creates the illusion of the possibility to uninstal and repair in add/remove programs, which may not be the case; if anything, zap file could be used instead, which at least woudn't pretend to be real thing; and after all, since the target product does not become really managed, why not to use logon or bootup script. But I see there are numerous wrapper utilities, so maybe it's OK to wrap? regards, Vadim Rapp

Re: What do you think about MSI wrappers? "Phil Wilson" <phil.wilson[ at ]wonderware.something.com> 11/20/2008 11:23:21 PM Why can't you repair or Uninstall from Add/Remove Programs? It's actually pretty easy. If the wrapper program knows the productcode of the installed product there are MSI APIs that will uninstall and repair. -- Phil Wilson Definitive Guide to Windows Installer http://www.apress.com/book/view/1590592972 "Vadim Rapp" <nospam[ at ]sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:Ovhn8bzSJHA.5244[ at ]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl... [Quoted Text] > What do you think about using MSI wrappers, i.e. encapsulating setup.exe > in MSI in order to deploy by GPO, or encapsulating MSI in order to specify > some command-line parameters - when creating transform is for whatever > reason not possible. > > I thought is quite bad idea since it creates the illusion of the > possibility to uninstal and repair in add/remove programs, which may not > be the case; if anything, zap file could be used instead, which at least > woudn't pretend to be real thing; and after all, since the target product > does not become really managed, why not to use logon or bootup script. But > I see there are numerous wrapper utilities, so maybe it's OK to wrap? > > regards, > Vadim Rapp >

Re: What do you think about MSI wrappers? "Vadim Rapp" <vr[ at ]nospam.myrealbox.com> 11/21/2008 3:34:21 AM PW> Why can't you repair or Uninstall from Add/Remove Programs? It's PW> actually pretty easy. If the wrapper program knows the productcode of PW> the installed product there are MSI APIs that will uninstall and PW> repair. Because generally speaking, encapsulated program may be not Installer-based. Vadim Rapp

Re: What do you think about MSI wrappers? "Install.Me.Dan" <Daniel.Lee.ME[ at ]gmail.com> 11/21/2008 2:20:13 PM Is a MSI file embedded in the Setup.exe? If so then there may be some maintenance problems in this case, however, uninstall should not be a problem. The wrapper should be able to have a custom action to uninstall the main wrapped Setup.exe. I don't know how management of patches and such would work though.

Re: What do you think about MSI wrappers? "Phil Wilson" <phil.wilson[ at ]wonderware.something.com> 11/21/2008 5:40:09 PM Your original example was "encapsulating setup.exe in MSI", like MSI 4.5. Embedding the MSI file in the setup.exe is the reverse, but no, you wouldn't want to maintain a product like that, and anyway the MSI needs extracting out of the exe to some location where it can be installed from, so just keep it there. -- Phil Wilson Definitive Guide to Windows Installer http://www.apress.com/book/view/1590592972 "Install.Me.Dan" <Daniel.Lee.ME[ at ]gmail.com> wrote in message news:880cbb7a-b43e-4352-9128-44cb150e35c9[ at ]q30g2000prq.googlegroups.com... [Quoted Text] > Is a MSI file embedded in the Setup.exe? If so then there may be some > maintenance problems in this case, however, uninstall should not be a > problem. The wrapper should be able to have a custom action to > uninstall the main wrapped Setup.exe. > > I don't know how management of patches and such would work though.