MSI installers with next version

I finally bit the bullet and worked on MSI installers for Windows. As anticipated it was not easy. I used WiX.

They do have some advantages over an installer distributed as “exe”:

  • One can add the Microsoft Visual Studio runtime as a “merge module” thus avoiding starting it in the installer manually
  • Apparently installing centralized on domain computers is easier

On the negative side:

  • No shared 32/64 bit MSIs are possible. That means the user has to select the right one before downloading
  • You cannot add custom commands as easily as in NSIS

I think I will only publish 64bit MSIs for now. Most Windows Servers should be 64bit now anyway and I will still publish the “old” installers for users of older and 32bit systems.

1 thought on “MSI installers with next version

  1. I installed UrBackup on a Ubuntu server (no GUI)

    sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:uroni/urbackup
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install urbackup-server

    I log into it – I have not installed any clients. I was hoping to mount my NAS (network attached storage). My thoughts were to mount the NAS locally on the UrBackup server and then configure it to backup the mounted file system – I don;t see an option for that. Am I missing something?

    Also can I back up to a TAPE drive with UrBackup

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