[wix-users] Delta patching feedback

[Blair Murri]

Delta can fail when updating a corrupted installation.



Sometimes a package built on one build of windows will fail to apply on another. Changing the final version of the file (via a recompile) would often, but not always, resolve it. There was no way to predict it. This delayed release of critical security updates more than once.



The compression algorithm used is advertised as being less reliable on 64 bit binaries.



The compression algorithm, which works for multiple file versions, quickly doesn't store very efficiently in that scenario, and effectively penalizes everyone for enabling it just to make skip patching possible.



Build times can be much longer and are always more complicated.



At one time (I don't know if it's still the case), the Windows/Microsoft Update system required two MSP files: a delta, and a whole-file. If the delta failed for any reason, the whole-file was automatically downloaded and used on the first retry. Office (and several others) simply uploaded the same whole-file MSP to both locations (the tool didn't verify) and the update reliability improved.



YMMV



Blair Murri



Sent from my Windows 10 phone



From: Bob Arnson<mailto:bob at firegiant.com>
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2017 7:12 AM
To: WiX Toolset Users Mailing List<mailto:wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Subject: Re: [wix-users] Delta patching feedback



Office stopped using it, FWIW.

-----Original Message-----
From: wix-users [mailto:wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org] On Behalf Of robert_yang at agilent.com
Sent: Thursday, 9 February, 2017 18:00
To: wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org
Subject: [wix-users] Delta patching feedback

I received some useful advice here on delta patching using the pyro -delta switch and ran some encouraging tests.  Now I'm thinking of switching over our patches to use this instead of whole file mode.  Has anyone ever encountered problems with delta patching on Windows 7 or Windows 10 ?  I see the feature was added in Windows Installer 3.0 (apparently circa Win XP SP2) and now we are in version 5.0.

Thanks !
-Rob

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