[Python-Dev] Python merge module

[Michael Urman]

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 15:27, Hoyt, David <hoyt6 at llnl.gov> wrote:
>> The Installer COM object is the platform standard mechanism, and that's what msilib uses.
>
> Why maintain a lib when there's (better), free alternatives out there that are maintained by Microsoft itself? (okay, a group at Microsoft that works on their free time, but has significant contributions by many teams at Microsoft -- thus they have a vested interested in its success).
>
>> I really see no need to move away from that - it can create arbitrary MSI files.
>
> Can it create merge modules? Transform files (e.g. localization)? Bootstrappers? There's a lot more to ms installers than the msi itself. Wouldn't it be easier to maintain an XML file than an entire lib dedicated to something that someone else has already solved?

If Python was starting at ground zero, and the choices were to create
a library or to use WiX, the answer might have been different. However
with a mature enough library to suit all the needs that anyone has
been willing to author, it's certainly more work to create the WiX
install and maintain it than it is to merely maintain the existing
scripts.

As far as the possibility of distributing Python as a merge module?
I'd recommend against it. Shared location merge modules are a
maintenance nightmare, and private location merge modules may not
offer the benefit you need. Better to just install the main Python msi
as part of a suite with your installer, whether you build that
installer in WiX and burn, or not.

Michael