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MSIStudio allows the user to define multiple releases for a single project. This allows the user to
quickly switch between different build variations without having to create a new project each time.
One release might include compression while another release might use a bootstrapper. Different languages could be assigned to different releases.
There are 3 general variations of output for a standard installation package. These are:
- Single MSI File. The output is a single MSI file. This can optionally have data files reflecting the target computer, suitable for CDROM distribution, or have the data files contained in an embedded or external CAB File.
- Setup.exe to call MSI file. This variation is the same as the first with an additional bootstrapper that drives the setup. The bootstrapper is a small executable file that, in addition to running the MSI file, can perform various preliminary tasks such as upgrading the Windows Installer runtime.
- Single Setup.exe. The entire setup is packaged within a single bootstrapper file. See the next tour page to view the configuration possibilities that exist for bootstrapper based releases.
Release Properties
There are many properties and options that can be specified for releases. The following sections describe these possibilities in more detail.
Output Name and Folder
The name of the output file and the folder in which it should be created is fully customizable. If the output filename is not specified then the setup package is given the default name.
For the output folder, the default behaviour is to create the output files in a Build subfolder of the project folder. It is sometimes useful to
create an output folder based on the current date and time. This allows each and every build to go to a separate location. Another possibility
is to use the version of the product as a subfolder of the build, useful when you would like versions to be kept separate.
Atlernative, a specific folder can be specified for the output.
File Compression
Release configurations that create an MSI file as output can specify additional compression options which affect how the output data files are stored.
When creating an installation package which is to be stored on removable media, it is essential to be able to specify the maximum file size for each CAB file
so that they can fit on the distribution media. For Internet based installations, breaking up the data files into separate CAB files based on components is
highly desirable. When a setup package downloads its data files from the Internet it must retrieve the CAB files which contain the files for the
components it has to install. Breaking up by component avoids the problem of having to unnecessarily download CAB file data which contains data files that are
not needed by the current installation.
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