[wix-users] Visual Studio Versions

[Edwin Castro]

We do have different solutions for product code versus installers. That
said I don't use visual studio to build. I use msbuild and the wixproj
projects directly since I need to rebuild lots of different projects for
various configurations that get consumed by common components later on in
away that is noy easily done with visual studio solutions. I mostly use the
solution as a container for the IDE to open all the installer projects at
once. I mostly use Visual Studio as a glorified XML editor (a very good one
in my opinion).

If we used IsWiX we'd be in good shape. The biggest issue on our end is
getting multiple versions of visual studio installed on dev boxes, build
servers, etc. There seems to be apprehension to installing multiple
versions of Visual Studio even though it most definitely supports
side-by-side installs.

--
Edwin G. Castro


On Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 20:03 Christopher Painter <chrpai at iswix.com> wrote:

> Thanks. I feel for you… I installed VS2010, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2018 on a
> Test VM for a CICD deployment group target and I forgot how ugly the VS2012
> IDE is. (IMO)
>
>
>
> I typically suggest people keep the application code and installer code in
> different sln  to make sure the app or the installer can upgrade when it’s
> ready and to simplify project build order dependencies so it sounds like if
> you were using IsWiX you’d be OK since it would give you a chance to dabble
> in 2015 if not for only the installer sln?
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Edwin Castro <egcastr at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, September 10, 2018 9:30 PM
> *To:* WiX Toolset Users Mailing List <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
> *Cc:* Christopher Painter <chrpai at iswix.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [wix-users] Visual Studio Versions
>
>
>
> We're still using Visual Studio 2012 but we don't use IsWiX. We need to
> support older C++ compilers so we don't rev Visual Studio very frequently.
> I'm actually hoping we can move on to Visual Studio 2015, at least, but I
> don't see that happening soon.
>
>
>
> Are you at a point where you can't really add new features to IsWiX for
> Visual Studio 2010 and 2012? If so, perhaps you can just select some
> version to be the last version supporting those versions of Visual Studio.
> If keeping that support in the latest versions of IsWiX doesn't keep you
> from implementing new features, then I don't see a problem having some
> features that only work on newer versions of Visual Studio. All that said,
> I don't use IsWiX so I don't have any vested interest in the outcome.
>
>
>
> --
>
> Edwin G. Castro
>
> On Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 19:08 Christopher Painter via wix-users <
> wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org> wrote:
>
> I'm curious, are there many people still using Visual Studio 2010 and
> 2012?  Has everyone moved on to at least 2013?   Does anyone know any
> published studies on this?
>
> I'm curious because I was recently testing my IsWiX application on VS
> 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017 and while it still works as designed on
> 2010 and 2012 it doesn't have the new features that were possible starting
> with 2013 and I'm not really happy with the incomplete story on 2010 and
> 2012.
>
> Part of me wants to rip out the 2010 and 2012 support and move forward and
> part of me thinks that I should just leave it be and let people use it on
> those platforms if they still are.
>
> Does anyone have any thoughts to share on this?
>
> **The feature gap is multi-project solutions templates that can create
> several projects all at once and wire up all the references automatically.
> Prior to this you had to create  the projects individually and add all the
> references.  Something that would lower adoption rate.
>
>
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