Robert Scoble blogs: "What's possibly the most used piece of software developed at Microsoft? The WiX [Windows Installer XML] toolset."
Some readers know I've been talking and writing about WiX within the Visual FoxPro community for a couple of years now, most recently in a conference presentation at Southwest Fox last fall. WiX builds Windows Installer setup file (MSI) from XML source code. It's unique for several reasons, including the fact that it was the first open-source product released by Microsoft. Scoble filmed a 57-minute video featuring Rob Mensching and the rest of the all-volunteer WiX 'virtual team', which is now available on Channel 9.
In the video, Rob talks about the evolution of Wix and demonstrates its use and integration with Visual Studio. He also shows the Orca MSI editor, a nifty little tool for poking around inside MSI files. Around minutes 30:00 to 33:00, Rob and others talk about the importance of integrating setup authoring into the software development process, a theme I touched on in my Best Practices for Deployment session at last weekend's Great Lakes Great Database Workshop (GLGDW) in Milwaukee.
If you're interested in WiX, this video is required viewing. If you're not, this is a good way to start getting familiar with WiX and the team that created it. For more information, read Rob Mensching's blog and visit the WiX home on the Web at wix.sourceforge.net. The tutorial there is particularly helpful. For VFP developers, there is also a WiX page on the FoxPro Wiki.
Tags: WiX, Windows Installer, Scoble
3 comments:
Rick,
Have you done any automated work at integrating Wix into VFP development?
I started playing with it and came up with an idea for an automated wizard but then thought "I'm sure Rick's done something like this already"
Have you? It might be a good idea for a Sednax project if not.
Nothing I'm ready to share yet, but I agree this area is ripe for development. If you'd like to share your idea please contact me. We can also talk about a possible SednaX project.
Hi All,
Has someone tried intergatin WiX with TFS Build 2005. I am tryin to do that but getting an error. Looks like the Team Build is not able to Find the path of the exe i want to package using WiX.. For local build it works well. not for team build. Can some one help or give some pointers????
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