tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9537945.post-62271172552567511672008-01-23T15:31:00.000-06:002008-01-23T15:31:00.000-06:00Yes, I'm aware of that white paper and the resulting MSI updates coming. I've also spoken with several tools vendors on the subject.<BR/><BR/>BTW, trivia question: Who know who invented the merge module specification that is soo busted?<BR/><BR/>Most of my thoughts were geared to the fake/empty MSI followed by a patch to major upgrade ( true install ) the application. As far as I know, that's not addressed by this white paper but if it is and I missed it, please feel free to chime in.<BR/><BR/>BTW when MSI first came out the bootstrapper was really only intended to deploy MSIEXEC. All the other package integration was intended to be performed by merge modules and concurrent installs. Of course we've now compltely acknowledged that the design is flat out busted from a servicing perspective.<BR/><BR/>Personally I don't think we should need a bootstrapper to host an external UI. There should be someway of loading a library into the MSI and when the client side process fires up it automatically uses it if present. Further I think there should be some way of storing all of these micropackages inside the MSI and chaining them all together without the help of a bootstrapper.<BR/><BR/>In otherwords, an MSI should still be an MSI and it should still support things like GPO and a standardized deployment experience ( /qn /qb public properties ectera ) without going way off the reservation by hiding contents inside an EXE and creating complex XML files to drive the configuration.<BR/><BR/>Hope that's lucid enough. I'm rarely accused of being that. :-) I usually come across much better while drinking coffee for several hours.Christopher Painterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12167478740431444267noreply@blogger.com