MSI for Windows Installer

[zaps]

I'm working on a fork of Toolbox to utilize MS Windows Installer (using WiX) to provide a more native installation experience than the current InnoSetup implementation. Using MSI reduces the amount of abstraction added by third-party install solutions like Inno because Windows Installer is baked into the OS itself, so there is less script-driven acrobatics needed for example, to set environment variables, and more declarative approach. There are also benefits from an upgrade/patching standpoint.

I was curious if there was any design documentation that exists w/r/t the current Windows installer. Things like file locations, order of dependent package installation, upgrade scenario requirements, etc. I am somewhat familiar with Inno so I'm slowly trying to translate the behavior into a Windows Installer equivalent but if there was something already that laid all this info out it would make it much easier to work with.

There are also questions that come up during the course of this work that I am unsure the reasoning of. Such as why is the installer using the Kitematic .zip file and decompressing its contents instead of using the pre-built setup.exe provided by the Kitematic team? If there were documentation, I could understand the reasoning behind this decision.

Thanks in advance!

[thaJeztah]

Out of interest; would you maintain the MSI as a fork, or would that be something you would like to contribute? I can't talk for the maintainers of this project, but it sounds like something they may be interested in for inclusion in the project.

[zaps]

Absolutely I'd love to contribute this work to the project! I was just keeping it as a fork so I had a place to house the code 😄

[thaJeztah]

Thanks, @zaps, sounds good 👍

[mchiang0610]

@zaps @thaJeztah Thanks! Yes, we'd be interested to have MSI Windows installer as well.

Sorry for the lack of documentation. This is based on the code written for boot2docker installer:
https://github.com/boot2docker/windows-installer

[zaps]

Thanks @mchiang0610, I think it might make sense for me to do a high-level info dump of what I have so far. Just so you guys can check my work make sure it matches expectations of what the install should do.

I'll put together a short doc, commit to my repo, and update you here when done.

[zaps]

@thaJeztah @mchiang0610 Ok I put together a basic README with a general overview of what I have so far for the MSIs, as well as a fairly hefty TODO list near the bottom 😄

https://github.com/zaps/toolbox/blob/master/windows/wix/README.md

Feel free to question any of my assumptions, correct my mistakes, ask for clarification, etc!

Thanks

[zaps]

bump?

[thaJeztah]

/cc @JeffDM PTAL

[jmorganca]

Looking! Sorry for the delay, thanks @zaps @thaJeztah !