Re: Check out InstallAWARE!

From: Andrea Raimondi (rainaple_at_tin.it)
Date: 11/17/04 

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:56:24 +0100

Steve Moss wrote:
> Under exactly what conditions? Exactly what error messages? What are
> *you* doing wrong? Do you understand Windows Installer sufficiently (it
> appears not)?

Steve,

I don't know much about Windows Installer, but I can testify for
sure that it hasn't happened to me only once to get some weird
error message from ADO or some other MS technology which will
give *no* clue about what is going wrong. And when I say *no clue* I
really mean it, things like: "An error has occurred", "Field is
invalid"( ok, what *exactly* makes it invalid, and which field?), the
list is almost endless. No wonder either he didn't write down the
exact error messages or situations where they happen, because you'd
need to keep track of each single modification and that's clearly not
possible considering the huge number of Windows Updates, Office Updates,
whatever update, programs that install tens of times the same DLL( even
registering all of them ) and so on and on.

> Actually, it will *work* - not "kind of", if you take the time to learn
> it, to use it properly. Believe it or not, Windows Installer offers the
> user (and thereby the vendor) great advantages. That's exactly how most
> corporates view it nowadays, and if you ignore it you will without
> doubt seriously curtail your market. That6's your choice.

The problem here is not only or better, not sufficient to "fully
understand" the technology, but also to be able to slalom in
insufficient documentation, wrong notes, magic numbers and all those
things that make me( and I guess to not be alone in this ) so mad about
MSDN and the like.

I remember clearly that there was a documented function in MSDN having a
documented integer parameter and the documentation said there were three
available values: 3, 1 and 5. If you passed 1, in code, it would
simply be ignored, while passing 3 or 5 would end up in a switched
result between the two. If only I could remember the function name...

Thus, it can be the programmer's fault, that's sure, but most of the
times you also have to consider MS bugs as a true alternative to your
failures. And you know what? I don't have a hard time beleiving MSIExec
simply stops working.

Cheers,

Andrew 

--
Online thoughts blog
http://araimondi.blogspot.com

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