Confused about the roll of burn (bootstrapper) vs the main msi installer

2
votes

I'm a bit confused about how wix burn and the main installer are expected to interact with each other. I'm new to wix and windows installer technology in general.

Based on the examples I've seen I was under the impression the burn application would install prereqs then switch to the main installer. However I've seen comments from searches that when using the burn application the main installer becomes secondary and the burn UI should be used instead. This is reinforced by the behavior of the burn application. What I mean is the burn application has it's own license agreement, ARP entry, hides the main installer by default, and has it's own change/repair entry.

This has me confused because the burn application is lacking a lot of functionality the main installer has through MSI. Some functionality I would consider essential such as feature selection, directory selection, and changing features. But this is absent from the burn application.

I feel if I used the burn application as the primary I'd have to recreate the UI, while if I used the main installer for prereqs (if possible) I'd have to recreate the functionality burn provides. Neither approach is desired, so I am wondering how other users of wix handle large projects. Is it standard to write your own custom burn UI? Any help that might clear up this confusion would be greatly appreciated.

1
wixwindows-installer

1 Answers

1
votes

Common practice would be to use the Wix bootstrapper (burn) specifically for installing software that is necessary to run your main application, first and automatically.

You would indeed use the main MSI produced by Wix to install your main application. You would use one of the UI (dialog set) sequences already available in Wix. The dialog set will be applicable only for the main MSI, because again, the bootstrapper's main responsibility is to install pre-requisite software for your application to be able to run.

The whole installation process involving your application MSI in conjunction with the bootstrapper executable would be as follows:

Pre-installation

  1. You would build your application MSI.
  2. You would make sure your MSI is specified in your bootstrapper .wxs file.
  3. You would build a Wix bootstrapper executable file which, if correctly set, would include your appplication MSI.

Installation

  1. You simply run the bootstrapper executable file.
  2. All pre-requisite software will be installed first.
  3. Your main application MSI will now be executed. The user will now be able to set e.q. the installation directory of your application through the dialog sequence of your main MSI (including the other points you've mentioned, if the correct dialog sequence set has been selected before building).

Hope this helps to clear out things a little bit!