[wix-users] Visual Studio "15" installer? [P]

Thu May 5 12:06:04 PDT 2016

I'm working on a blog entry about this but since blog entries can take a very long time for me to finish (pulled in too many directions) here are some of my thoughts:

1. I worked on VS2012 where Burn was introduced. I personally did a lot of work to improve the installation perf of VS (cutting minutes and minutes off the installation). I came to the conclusion (and here's my punchline): the problems that needed to be solved were not installation problems. The VS app needed fixing.

2. VS has a problem that it "ships Microsoft's kitchen sink". Everything in Microsoft (Windows Client, Phone, Server, Azure, Office, Xbox, SQL Server, etc.) wants to put something in VS. In VS2015 they also chose to ship a bunch of non-Microsoft stuff too.

3. In VS2015 they wanted to try to release all the disparate stuff at independent times. This creates an enormous test matrix. It is even more scary when you consider how tightly coupled everything is in VS (see #1).

4. My recommendation was to solve the app problems and build system problems so that an integrated updated VS could be delivered rapidly as a single Bundle but still enable testing of the cohesive system.

5. Instead, they chose to create a (IMHO) Frankenstein mashup with Burn and WebPI (note: I think very little of WebPI. Everything shipped in WebPI would install much better as a Bundle but that's a story for another day). The result was that a lot of installation decisions were made at install time. Thus the permutations were challenging (some might say impossible) to test. It created a lot of headaches for everyone and I'm personally impressed that they held it together as well as they did. I only hit a couple issues where my build machines went sideways because VC++ no longer matched some piece of VS that didn't match the right Windows SDK. 

6. In VS15 it appears they have doubled down on the disparate updates of everything. They abandoned Burn/WebPI and choose to create a custom installation front end to manage everything. Underneath their still going to be managing bundles, MSIs, custom executables and everything else under the sun because VS is the kitchen sink. I'm still not sold this is the way to go, but since they chose to go this way, I agree that Burn is not the solution for the front end. Burn will still be able to do a lot of heavy lifting of the actual installation but the installation front end will pick what to install. I think this front end is Electron but we'll see if they stay with that...

7. It also appears they are tackling the app problems (see #1) while saying they are fixing setup! This last point is the one that irks me most. I'm thrilled they are finally fixing the fact that VS needed 750,000 registry keys to work properly. But blaming setup for the root cause frustrates me. It makes developers think even less of setup than they already do. Creating the VS setup was a very challenging problem because the app was such a mess. Fix the app and setup will become less challenging.

Anyway, I'm working on refining the ending of #7 but I think you'll catch the gist there. ;)

_____________________________________________________________
 Short replies here. Complete answers over there: http://www.firegiant.com/  
  (except for today)

-----Original Message-----
From: wix-users [mailto:wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org] On Behalf Of John Zajac
Sent: Thursday, May 5, 2016 9:53 AM
To: WiX Toolset Users Mailing List <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Subject: Re: [wix-users] Visual Studio "15" installer? [P]

>From what I've seen in the deployment guides, I can understand that click-to-run presents some challenges. I've heard my sys admins complain about it, too. IIRC they began breaking a few WoW64 rules with the new click-to-run installers. 32-bit components in 64-bit folder I think is what caught me off guard.

Back to the point of the original question: I don't think the new VS installer uses Click-To-Run. However that article might actually be onto something about them using Node, as I see the vs_installer.exe process has a --node-integration=true command line parameter and a 'node.dll' in 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer'. You could probably dig some more and get a general idea of how they're using it.

I'm still not all that impressed. I think the WiX Toolset installer is way cooler ;)

On Thu, May 5, 2016 at 10:41 AM, Steven Ogilvie <Steven.Ogilvie at titus.com>
wrote:

> Classification: Public
> ClickToRun is a ridiculous installer feature... (IMHO)
>
> You can't wait a few minutes to use the app?
> Most places install major apps after hours using GPO , ePO, or SCCM or 
> other software push software...
>
> Steve
>
>
>
>
> This message has been marked as Public by Steven Ogilvie on May 5, 
> 2016
> 11:43:18 AM.
> The above classification labels were added to the message by TITUS 
> Message Classification.For More information visit www.titus.com.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wix-users [mailto:wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org] On 
> Behalf Of John Zajac
> Sent: May 5, 2016 11:25 AM
> To: WiX Toolset Users Mailing List <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
> Subject: Re: [wix-users] Visual Studio "15" installer?
>
> I also see evidence of Burn (v3.7), in the new "Visual Studio "15" 
> Preview with new installer". When I saw the demo at their last Build 
> event, they kept saying how fast it was, so I originally thought they 
> were going to use the 'Click-to-Run' technology (like the new Office 
> installers) where the user can immediately start working with the 
> application and as they user a feature those bits would be downloaded as first priority.
>
>  this article
> <
> http://t.sidekickopen51.com/e1t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7lC8dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJW7t
> 5XZs8r4Px6W3LyXBW4WrMg4N3J2C4j166gNf7lS-kF03?t=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zdnet.
> com%2Farticle%2Fheres-whats-inside-microsofts-private-preview-of-visua
> l-studio-next%2F&si=5758464741081088&pi=2ef32f32-2ca0-4094-dd95-b840e4
> 59d826
> >
> claims
> that 'the new installer is a Node app'. Maybe they use some Node along 
> with their telemetry/application insights. I'm not sure I understand 
> that comment in the article. Not even sure how much I trust it either.
>
> Maybe that new 'minimal' UI you mention is populated dynamically 
> through some kind of feed over the internet?
>
> Might be a good Quora question for some Microsoft employee to expand on.
>
>
>
> On Thu, May 5, 2016 at 5:21 AM, Nick Ball <Nick.Ball at grantadesign.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I've just downloaded the preview of Visual Studio "15" and they have 
> > a 'new' installer. Does anyone know what this uses? Having a poke 
> > around it doesn't seem to be burn, but I might be wrong. It seems a 
> > lot more in your face, showing the minimal UI for each package 
> > separate from the main installer. Thoughts?
> >
> > -N
> >
> > ____________________________________________________________________
> > WiX Toolset Users Mailing List provided by FireGiant 
> > http://www.firegiant.com/
> >
>
>
>
> --
> -John
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
> WiX Toolset Users Mailing List provided by FireGiant 
> http://www.firegiant.com/
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
> WiX Toolset Users Mailing List provided by FireGiant 
> http://www.firegiant.com/
>

--
-John

____________________________________________________________________
WiX Toolset Users Mailing List provided by FireGiant http://www.firegiant.com/