Shibboleth SP windows (msi) installer

[Rod Widdowson]

Please read no further if you have no interest in windows or the intricacies of building product releases...

The SP msi (windows installer package) suffers from a few drawbacks. Notably it is not possible to use it to do an upgrade, further
an uninstall/reinstall is damaging to any IIS configuration (which is often a tricky part of the initial install).

At the same time, building the msi requires that a specific piece of commercial software is installed which limits which developers
can build a release. Further the company responsible for the product in question has changed hands several times and as a result
the product feels unloved.

Finally, the installers for the windows version of IdP V3.x will be written using WiX (an Open Source MSI-building toolset) and we
would like it if everything used the same technology.

So, to cut a long story short, I have been researching and investigating WiX and the SP installer. In order to clarify my notes I
have written up a brief requirements/design/implementation note at
https://wiki.shibboleth.net/confluence/display/~r...@iay.org.uk/SPWiXDiscussionDesign

Anyone who is interested is encouraged to comment either here or in the Wiki. In particular I'd appreciate feedback from those with
experience of WiX.

/Rod

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[Cantor, Scott]

On 3/17/12 9:31 AM, "Rod Widdowson" <r...@steadingsoftware.com> wrote:
>
>Anyone who is interested is encouraged to comment either here or in the
>Wiki. In particular I'd appreciate feedback from those with experience
>of WiX.

That mostly makes sense to me, but how does the system treat a file that's
named the same in both packages but is newer in the upgrade? Does that
constitute an increase to the reference count? I assume so...

I'm not averse to being extremely meticulous with the file sets. I've been
doing that anyway, or at least trying to.

I don't quite know how merge modules for libraries play into this either.
Do they just implement the same kind of upgrade logic for the files that
the main installer would?

-- Scott

[Rod Widdowson]

> That mostly makes sense to me, but how does the system treat a file that's named the same in both
> packages but is newer in the upgrade? Does that constitute an increase to the reference count? I
> assume so...

The installer appears to do magical things with modified dates or explicit versions
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa368267.aspx() so if the same component has the same file name then the newest "wins". I
think that I need to research this further since I'd quite like to be explicit rather than trust modified dates...

> I don't quite know how merge modules for libraries play into this either.
> Do they just implement the same kind of upgrade logic for the files that the main installer would?

Good point, I'll need to investigate this further. I *suspect* that they follow the same install/uninstall rules as the master MSI.
I'll check, research, and then check again

/Rod