Windows Installer

[Alex Earl]

Hey All,

I've been looking at the Windows installer and thinking about moving it from Wix, which generates an MSI, to NSIS which generates an exe. The main reason for the switch is to reduce the complexity of building the installer. Moving to NSIS would allow building the installer on Linux, reducing the cost of the infrastructure as the current Wix build requires the full .NET framework in the build image/VM. I believe all of the features of the current installer can be easily replicated in NSIS. I'm wondering if anyone has knowledge of the history of why MSI was chosen in the first place; if there was a really good reason, I wouldn't want to stray from that without more consideration. 

Thanks,

Alex

[Fritz Elfert]

FYI:
You don't need Windows for running WIX.
If you are using WIX 3.x, you can build with WIX on linux by using a dockerized wix wrapper. There several of them, and it happens that I am the creator of this one: https://hub.docker.com/r/felfert/wix
I use this almost daily (using podman, instead of docker).

Regarding why MSI was chosen, i can only guess: Microsoft SCCM (which is still the mandatory way of Software-deployment in many corporations).

Cheers
-Fritz

[Alex Earl]

I needed to upgrade to Wix >= 4.x because I want to support creating an installer for Windows on Arm. It is possible to install x64 apps on Windows on Arm, but I would like a native installer if possible.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Jenkins Developers" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to jenkinsci-de...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jenkinsci-dev/1cebcdbb-d2b1-4a36-9fc8-5773548b39e4%40fritz-elfert.de.

[Daniel Beck]

On Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 3:30 AM Alex Earl <slide...@gmail.com> wrote:

I needed to upgrade to Wix >= 4.x because I want to support creating an installer for Windows on Arm. It is possible to install x64 apps on Windows on Arm, but I would like a native installer if possible.

Do we know whether this is a common use case?

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email and any attachments contain confidential and proprietary information of CloudBees intended only for the named recipient(s). Unauthorized use or distribution is prohibited. If you received this in error, please notify the sender and delete this email.

[Alex Earl]

I have a vested interest in it, but we don't explicitly have to do it. I'd like to make it available on Windows on Arm if possible. :)

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Jenkins Developers" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to jenkinsci-de...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jenkinsci-dev/CAMo7Pt%2BcqLgwKQ0RmRseqcz307Jcu-hi7bG8SJ%3DEcSsNaFWCbg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Tim Jacomb]

I think it makes sense to do. Good to upgrade wix anyway.

I think MSI makes sense to keep for enterprise deployment.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jenkinsci-dev/CAPiUgVfd%2B5fMyc5j7DwEpv8n2EzMq3ZNFvRKrVZWvW3RWyN5AA%40mail.gmail.com.