Is burn a Wix replacement for msiexec?

Question

Simple question - does burn replace msiexec?

I'm interested because I'm looking at the "VersionNT for Windows 10" issue and am getting very confused about who does/does not have a manifest that indicates Windows 10 support and whether Wix can detect Windows 10 during installs.

From what I can see, if Wix installs use msiexec, the answer is 'no' because even on Windows 10, msiexec.exe has no manifest. However burn does seem to have a manifest indicating Windows 10 suppport - but is it a replacement for msiexec and if not, does the Wix generated 'app-install.exe' just shell msiexec?

Answer 1

Wix burn creates a one-stop shop for all your product's installation needs. The idea behind burn is to create a bootstrapper that will run the bundled packages depending on whether or not their install conditions are met. You generally want to use a bootstrapper if there are several MSI's or EXE's that need to be run for your product to be installed.

The Bootstrapper EXE will launch launch the bundled EXEs or MSIs in the order defined in the <Chain>. If it is launching an MSI this will be launched through msiexec just like when you double click the msi.

Another goal of the bootstrapper is to only elevate once. You will only get one UAC prompt for elevation when running the bootstrapper instead of one for every msi as it enters the Server portion of the install.

Answer 2

VersionNT for windows 10 is 603.

You can check the install log of any installer and find versionNT property that is set by window installer.

You can Read more of that on: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa372495(v=vs.85).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa370556(v=vs.85).aspx