Software Deployment

Well as you know when an MSI is isolated using either the .LOCAL or .MANIFEST methods the files that have been isolated are installed into the application folder. This means that when patching I will have to target those files to ensure that the program runs with the updates. With .MANIFEST isolation I have to not only patch the file but also the manifest file as well as it contains all the COM information about the files in question, as well as the file names of the isolated files.

The point I was making was about the process that my team could follow to patch and author updated MSI's and that the easiest way to do this would be to install the app, patch it and snap it, then convert that into an MSI and retrieve out the new manifest and files from it to make a patch from.

P

i dont see a huge issues with .local files.

however the .manifest should be more entertaining.

If it was me I would look at the WiX custom actions and swipe the action called SchedXML from the Wix Installers.

Then export the XMLFile table and import it into your wise package, this will give you the opportunity to edit any xml based file using xpath expressions.

Its pretty straight forward and a nice clean way to manipulate xml.

you would need to use an xpath along the lines of

//myconfig/locationToChange[@MyChangableItem='test']/value

Thanks for the reply and I have to agree with you on .local files, its just a matter of autoring the patch to update the program files installation rather than the system32 files, for example. The way I was thinking of working with the manifests was getting people to isolated the patched application then re-author a patch from that data.

P

Im not sure I followed that comment too well Paul can you explain a little more please.