InstallSite Blog : WiX

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 includes link to InstallShield Limited Edition

stefan — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:02:26 GMT

Some beta testers of Visual Studio 2010 pointed out that in the New Project dialog there is a new template called "InstallShield 2010". It's listed next to "Visual Studio Installer" under Other Project Types > Setup and Deployment. It's not a real template but only a button labeled "Enable InstallShield Limited Edition" as you can see in the screenshot from the Professional edition of Visual studio 2010 Beta 2:

Clicking this button takes you to another page with some explanation what InstallShield Limited Edition for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 is, and a button "Go to InstallShield". However the link behind this button isn't (yet?) working, it redirects to the Microsoft homepage.

So it looks like Microsoft and Flexera Software are extending their cooperation to make a limited edition of InstallShield available to Visual Studio users. Users of Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) can already get a limited edition of Flexera Software's AdminStudio at no additional cost.

There is currently no information about the capabilities and limitations of this edition of InstallShield.

While it's good to see that Microsoft is going to offer Visual Studio users an alternative to Visual Studio Installer projects (which are still available) to create Windows Installer (MSI) setups, I'm still sad that they decided not to include the Windows Installer XML toolkit (WiX) with Visual Studio 2010, as they had planned previously. And since Visual Studio 2010 is still in beta, they could even decide not to include InstallShield either.

Speaking of WiX - the WiX toolset now supports Visual Studio 2010 Beta2:

Related information:

Rob Mensching starts Windows Installer Consulting business, offering free project reviews

stefan — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:59:45 GMT

Rob Mensching is the lead of the Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset, an open source tool to create Windows Installer (MSI) setups. I his day job he's employed at Microsoft, and as another side project he wrote his own blog software. Apparently he still has some additional spare time ;-) so he started RobMensching.com LLC to offer software installation consulting services for the Windows Installer and WiX toolset.

As part of his consulting business, Rob offers to review .msi packages and .wxs projects free of charge. Wow! I highly recommend you make use of Rob's Windows Installer knowledge and experience.

RobMensching.com LLC

No joke – WiX will NOT Ship with Visual Studio

stefan — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:07:00 GMT

Several months ago, Microsoft had announced that the next version of Visual Studio (Visual Studio 2010, code name Rosario) will ship with a subset of the Windows Installer XML Toolkit (WiX). But on April 1st, 2009, Rob Mensching, the WiX project lead, had bad news to announce on his blog: “Visual Studio will not ship the WiX toolset, contributes only”.

Given the date, and since Microsoft officially had announced WiX in Visual Studio and CTP pre-releases of Rosario included WiX, I assumed that this was an April Fool’s joke. Unfortunately, it is not.

I don’t know what the exact reasons were for this unexpected decision, so I can’t really judge. But I think that it’s a lose-lose situation. Visual Studio won’t ship with an advanced Windows Installer authoring tool. And the open source WiX project won’t be “blessed” as a product that’s backed by Microsoft support.

The good news is that WiX will continue to work with and integrate in Visual Studio, and that the work that the Visual Studio team has contributed to the WiX project isn’t lost but will help to finalize WiX 3.0.

Let’s hope that the disappointment that this decision probably has caused in the team will not stop their enthusiasm.

Answers from the MSI Team

stefan — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:31:25 GMT

Last week at Microsoft’s Global MVP Summit I had the opportunity to sit down with the MSI and WiX teams. It was great to meet all these Windows Installer experts and we had some interesting discussions. With me I had some questions from readers of my blog and visitors of my web site, and the MSI team was kind enough to answer them, as below. I want to thank everyone who took the time to meet with me – it was a great experience.

Only some of the people I met:

Zainab Hakim (program manager for Windows Installer), Hemchander "Hem" Sannidhanam (Dev lead for Windows Installer), Bob Arnson (WiX project admin), Ashish Awasthi (developer on the MSI team), Rob Mensching (WiX project admin), Mark Rovetta (documentation writer for Windows Installer)

Answers to your Questions

Please note that some questions were sent to me in German so I translated them to English. I also slightly shortened or re-worded some of the questions.

Question from David: Our problem is basically a componentization problem, and the very, very limited ability to return information from an MSI install. In our case, we chain a number of 3rd-party MSIs into our install. What we would like to be able to do is have custom return codes for msiexec so that we can communicate to our distribution mechanism that the overall install succeeded, but that a particular component package failed. (InstallShield gave us a custom fix that allows error return codes to be ignored for chained .msi packages). Ideally, this could be something like an extra column the Error table, and an option indicating whether that error is a terminating condition or not.

Answer from the MSI Team: Like you already mentioned, handling the exit codes from msiexec.exe would actually be a functionality of the chainer. To get the exact error codes you could use a chainer with external UI, which would receive the error messages via its callback function.

Question from Colby: When will the MSI team add support for managed code custom actions (similar to the WiX DTF extensions)?

Answer from the MSI Team: DTF is a great solution for this purpose. Like every company, the MSI team at Microsoft doesn’t have unlimited resources and therefore has to set priorities. We work to improve and advance the platform instead of duplicating solutions that are already available from third parties.

Question from Carsten: We are using .NET applications more and more. Therefore .NET support in Windows Installer is becoming increasingly important. A hot topic is starting of .NET applications from a network drive. To enable starting from network drives we need to create a code group in the .NET runtime which contains the key of the strong named digital signature of our components. With this code group we can specify a zone in which the .NET code will be executed, for instance the “internet” zone. We currently use installer class custom actions (written in C#) to create this code group. Will there be a Windows Installer solution for such configurations?

Answer from the MSI Team: When using .NET 3.5 SP1 the runtime now trusts network shares (editor’s note: see .NET 3.5 SP1 Runs Managed Applications From Network Shares). Other than that, managed code custom actions are a viable solution.

Question from Carsten: In a Major Upgrade, .NET components which have been installed in the GAC will be removed during uninstall of the old version but not installed again during install of the new version, if the version of the .NET component hasn’t changed. Workarounds would be incrementing the file version of the component, even if the file hasn’t really changed, or moving the RemoveExistingProducts action to the end of the install sequence. The latter is not an option for us, and manually incrementing the file version isn’t a good solution either. Will future MSI versions have better support for GAC installs?

Answer from the MSI Team: This is a bug that has been fixed in Windows 7 (MSI 5). However, the fix has not been back ported to SP2 for Windows Vista and Server 2008 as yet.

Question from Carsten: Will there be better cooperation between Windows Installer and security tools like anti-virus tools? These are sometimes preventing InstallScript custom actions from running, or block applications that are being launched for installation, even if they are digitally signed.

Answer from the MSI Team: This is not a problem that Windows Installer can solve. A workaround would be to avoid script based custom actions. Also there are anti virus tools that are particularly careful with setups to avoid such false positives.

Question from Carsten: When doing an administrative install the digital signature is invalidated. Will there be a solution for this?

Answer from the MSI Team: While MSI 5 will fix the problem with invalidating the digital signatures of locally cached .msi files by not stripping any embedded CABs, it will not solve the issue for administrative installs. When installing from an administrative image the source must be trusted in some other way.

Preparing for MVP Summit – Your Questions for the MSI Team?

stefan — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:43:00 GMT

It’s MVP Summit time again! Next week I’ll be travelling to Seattle and Redmond to attend the MVP Global Summit, an event where Microsoft invites MVPs from around the world to hear about the latest technologies, meet the product teams, network, and also have a little fun :)

For me this means that I’ll have the opportunity to sit down with the Windows Installer team (including their documentation writer) and also folks from the WiX team.

Now I have this idea to not only ask my own questions, but also on behalf of my blog readers. So is there anything you always (or recently) wanted to ask the MSI team or some feedback you want to give them? Please let me know. Either post your question as a comment on the blog or send it to me by e-mail skrueger [at] installsite.org

Of course I can’t promise that your questions will be answered (or in some cases I may not be allowed to publish the answer if it’s under NDA). But it’s worth a try.

Buch Inside Windows Installer 4.5 (GERMAN)

stefan — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:33:00 GMT

Inside Windows Installer 4.5 ist das neue Buch von Andreas Kerl.

(This book is only available in German language, therefore I'm writing this review in German)

Andreas Kerl ist als Autor zum Thema Windows Installer bekannt. Neben einigen Artikeln in Fachzeitschriften hat er auch die Bücher "Inside Windows Installer" (erschienen 2003) und "Windows Installer 3.1" (erschienen 2005) verfasst. Das neue Buch “Inside Windows Installer 4.5” ist aber keine Fortschreibung des gleichen Inhalts, sondern die drei Bücher können eigenständig nebeneinander stehen.

Das Buch richtet sich an Software-Entwickler und Systemadministratoren, die bereits Grundkenntnisse zu Windows Installer besitzen, denn selbst die Einführungskapitel gehen schnell in die Tiefe und geben Einblicke “unter die Haube” der Windows Installer Technologie.

Daneben enthält das Buch auch eine Einführung in das Open Source Tool WiX (Windows Installer XML), ein Werkzeug zum Erstellen von Installationspaketen, das Microsoft auch intern einsetzt, sowie in die Deployment Tools Foundation (DTF), eine Erweiterungsbibliothek für Windows Installer, die ebenfalls aus dem Hause Microsoft stammt. Die Installations-Beispiele im Buch sind alle in WiX geschrieben. Andere (kommerzielle) Tools zum Erstellen von Installationsprogrammen werden nicht behandelt.

Das Buch erklärt die Funktionsweise von Windows Installer und wie er mit anderen Teilen des Betriebssystems zusammenarbeitet. Um nur ein paar Beispiele zu nennen:

Im Kapitel über die Benutzerkontensteuerung (UAC) wird auch die Intention dieser Neuerung in Windows Vista beleuchtet und was dabei hinter den Kulissen des Berechtigungssystems vor sich geht.

Im Kapitel über den Restart Manager erfährt man auch, wie ein Systemstart abläuft und welche Registry-Einträge in welcher Reihenfolge für Autostart-Aktionen ausgewertet werden.

Ein ausführliches Kapitel behandelt externe Benutzeroberflächen, ein Thema, das allein mit der Dokumentation von Microsoft kaum zu bewältigen ist. Der Quelltext steht – wie für alle Beispiele im Buch – als Download zur Verfügung.

Auf diese Weise vermittelt das Buch ein fundiertes Verständnis von Windows Installer im Zusammenhang mit anderen Teilen des Betriebssystems.

Inside Windows Installer 4.5 bei amazon.de

New Advanced Installer 6.5 brings Windows Installer 4.5 support and WiX import

stefan — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:50:55 GMT

On August 19th, 2008 Caphyon Ltd. announced the latest edition of its Windows Installer authoring tool. The new Advanced Installer enables developers and system administrators to easily build and repackage complex applications into reliable, ready to deploy MSI and EXE installers, patches and on-line updates.

The 6.5 version completes the full implementation of Windows Installer
4.5 features. Embed multiple MSIs in a unified setup package and install them chained in a single, atomic transaction.

A new WiX import feature helps you leverage existing installer projects while at the same time giving you access to the numerous Advanced Installer features and capabilities.

Collect user information during install and POST it to your server with the included predefined Custom Action. With just one click specify your software dependencies using one of the newly added prerequisites and launch conditions.

Other improvements in this version:

Complete Windows Installer 4.5 feature support
WiX projects import
.NET Native Image Generation 2.0 support
.NET Native Image Generation support for assemblies installed in GAC
User info collection and retrieval custom action
Support for discrete "INI entry removal" operation
Windows Installer 4.5 predefined Prerequisites
SQL Server compact edition predefined prerequisite
Visual C++ 2005 SP1 redistributable predefined prerequisite
Visual C++ 2008 redistributable predefined prerequisite
MS XML Parser predefined prerequisite
Acrobat Reader 9.0 predefined prerequisite
Acrobat Reader 9.0 predefined launch condition
DirectX predefined launch condition

Advanced Installer is available in four editions, starting with the Freeware community edition and offering a 30-day trial period for the other editions.

For more information about Advanced Installer please see:
www.installsite.biz/advancedinstaller.htm

(Text based on a press release from Caphyon Ltd.)

ScriptLogic released MSI Studio for SCCM, supporting WiX format

stefan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:46:51 GMT

One more TechEd announcement (actually it's already 10 days old but I haven't had the chance to post it yet):

On June 10, 2008 ScriptLogic® Corporation, a leading provider of systems lifecycle management solutions for Microsoft® Windows®-based networks, announced the availability of MSI Studio for Systems Center Configuration Manager.

MSI Studio for Systems Center Configuration Manager features enhancements to allow administrators to exchange information with other MSI utilities and users. The solution now includes support for importing and exporting MSI packages in the WIX format, an industry standard XML file format that was developed by Microsoft and is now widely used in the open source software community, as well as support for Windows Server® 2008. Additionally, a new stand-alone Run Wizard helps IT administrators ensure successful installs by creating MSI command lines that apply the correct transforms and options.

MSI Studio for Systems Center Configuration Manager is the latest addition to ScriptLogic’s MSI Studio product line, which includes Standard and Professional versions. The product combines package capture, re-packaging of existing installers, an intuitive MSI editor and improved MSI property support.

Desktop Authority MSI Studio originates from the product MaSaI Installer which was acquired by ScriptLogic Corp. in December 2005.

(This article is based on a press release from ScriptLogic)

Microsoft to "productize" WiX

stefan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:20:36 GMT

Rob Mensching reports that Microsoft will include a sub-set of the Windows Installer XML toolkit (WiX) in the next version of Visual Studio, code named Rosario. WiX is an open source project for authoring of Windows Installer (MSI) setups. While Microsoft employees played an important role in the WiX project from the beginning, they did this in their free time.

But now Microsoft staffed a number of full time developers to fix bugs in WiX version 3 and to further improve its integration in Visual Studio. The work of these developers will be fed back into the open source project. With the release of "Rosario" (not before the end of 2008) Microsoft will also provide technical support for WiX.

However WiX will not replace Setup & Deployment projects in Visual Studio - at least not in this release. That's because WiX has a steep learning curve and there are currently no visual designers for WiX. So I guess a significant fraction of developers is still going to prefer the seemingly easy to use (but also quite limited) S & D projects.

Maybe it would be a good idea to have these visual designers generate WiX code, so developers can easily move to the full power of WiX when needed, without starting over. Something like the ClickThrough idea in WiX.

Applause to the WiX team who brought the project thus far (and plans to bring it even further), to the Visual Studio team for moving into the right direction, and to Microsoft for progressing their open source engagement (which I believe was not easy for the company, and in which Rob Mensching also played an important role)!

How To Write an Automatic Update System

stefan — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:18:00 GMT

Here's a link to an eight part series which describes different approaches to inform your customers about available updates to your application and to automatically download and install those updates.

How To Write an Automatic Update System
(this is the last part of the seris which has links to the previous parts)

Note that msi setups should not be updated by replacing single files. Instead you should use a .msp patch file and run it to update your application. The mechanism decribed in the article should work well for patches, too. If you digitally sign your patch, and shipped the key in your original .msi file (in the MsiPatchCertificate table) you can even install the patch without requiring administrator privileges. In this case the service that Nir describes in part 5 of the series is obsolete.

The open source Windows Installer XML toolset (WiX) includes an auto-update solution for Windows Installer setups. It is using XML files in the popular RRS format.

German: dotnetpro 9/07 - WiX 3 und Benutzerkontensteuerung (UAC)

stefan — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:56:00 GMT

(This article is only available in German)

Auch das neue Heft 09/2007 der Zeitschrift dornetpro behandelt wieder Themen, die für Setup-Entwickler interessant sind.

Unter dem Titel "Installationsroutinen mit Windows Installer XML 3" stellt Andreas Kerl die Struktur und die wesentlichen Sprachmerkmale von WiX-Dokumenten sowie die Neuerungen in WiX Version 3 vor. Andreas arbeitet als Windows Installer Fachmann bei Microsoft und hat die Bücher Inside Windows Installer und Windows Installer 3.1 verfasst.

Ein Artikel von Achim Oellers befasst sich mit "Benutzerkontensteuerung und Virtualisierung unter Windows Vista" und welche Probleme daraus entstehen können.

In der Rubrik "Tipps und Tricks" widmet sich Andreas Maslo Setup- und Update-Tools.

Darüber hinaus enthält das Heft noch zahlreiche weitere Artikel für professionelle Software-Entwickler:

Inhaltsverzeichnis

dotnetpro gibt es nur für Abonennten, die Zeitschrift ist nicht am Kiosk erhältlich.

Es gibt ein kostenloses Zwei-Monats-Probeabo, das allerdings erst mit dem folgenden Heft beginnt. Als Abonnent kann man jedoch auch alle bisherigen Ausgaben online abrufen.

Korrektur (22.08.2007): Man kann auf der dotnetPro-WebPage Einzelhefte nachbestellen und einzeln abrechnen. (Danke an Andreas Wittig für den Hinweis)

Another new MSI authoring tool based on WiX

stefan — Fri, 18 May 2007 07:31:00 GMT

"War Setup" is a new Windows Installer authoring tool which uses the Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolkit as compiler to generate .msi files. War Setup supports WiX fragmants and is licensed under the Common Public License 1.0, so it's free and the source code is included.

Like I mentioned yesterday in my blog post about Indigo Rose's "Setup Factory for Windows Installer" it seems like WiX is becoming a popular foundation for MSI authoring tools.

It's also interesting that more companies and products are again entering the Windows Installer market. During the past years there was a consolidation trend with company acquisitions (Macrovision bought InstallShield and ZeroG, Altiris bought Wise and got bought by Symantec, ScriptLogic bought MaSaI Solutions) and product lines being merged or discontinued (both InstallShield and Wise combined their classic scripting products with their MSI authoring tools, ActiveInstall/InstallAnywhere.NET and a few others disappeared).

War Setup web site

Indigo Rose creates MSI Authoring Tool based on WiX

stefan — Thu, 17 May 2007 20:31:00 GMT

Indigo Rose Corp. is the maker of various setup, update and autorun tools. Like all of the setup tools from the pre-MSI era their Setup Factory product is using a proprietary technology.

But now Indigo Rose is working on a new product called "Setup Factory for Windows Installer" to author MSI packages (beta registration just started).

Setup Factory for Windows Installer doesn’t create .msi files directly. Instead it generates .wxs files which then are compiled into an .msi file using the open source Windows Installer XML toolset (WiX). It looks like this might become common practice. While there have been several open source projects to create graphical IDEs for WiX, a few months ago WiXAware from InstallAware Software Corp. was the first commercial tool that used this approach. Now Indigo Rose goes the same route.

There is very little public information about Setup Factory for Windows Installer so it’s unknown how much of the WiX functionality they will support, like Fragments (which Rob Mensching found lacking in WiXAware).

Setup Factory for Windows Installer Beta announcement

Automate Releases With MSBuild And WiX

stefan — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 12:20:00 GMT

This article by Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi from the March 2007 issue of MSDN Magazine is available online in multiple languages.

WiX Tricks: Automate Releases With MSBuild And Windows Installer XML

This article discusses:
- An overview of Windows Installer XML
- Creating WiX packaging instructions
- Integrating WiX and MSBuild
- Automating builds and packaging

Article at MSDN

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi is the author of the book Deploying .NET Applications. Learning MSBuild and ClickOnce

Oops, they did it again: InstallAware "inspired" by competitor's web site

stefan — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 20:48:00 GMT

Usually I write about setup technology, not ethics. So I was unsure whether I should write this article or not. Also because InstallAware Software Corp. may have a policy of: "All publicity is good publicity because after a few months people forget what you did wrong and only remember your name." At least that's what Rob Mensching, chief of the WiX project, wrote in his Blog after InstallAware representatives visited him in his office at Microsoft. But I finally decided to blog about this, so here the story goes:

For their new Windows Installer authoring product, WiXAware, InstallAware Software Corp. also launched a new web site www.wixaware.com. For reasons unknown to me they didn’t use the same design as in their main www.installaware.com site but instead created a completely different looking web site.

I noticed that the new WiXAware site resembles the layout and design of www.advancedinstaller.com. AdvancedInstaller is also a Windows Installer authoring tool, from Caphyon Ltd, a competitor of InstallAware. Click the images to see the live web site.


www.advancedinstaller.com	www.wixaware.com

While InstallAware uses a slightly different CD-ROM picture, the sites share the same layout, like the "Clients & Partners" box etc. They even have the fine print in the upper right corner and a similar color scheme for the "Download" and "Buy Now" buttons.

The same is true for the "Features" resp. "Benefits" page, where they even use similar wording:

www.advancedinstaller.com/features.html	www.wixaware.com/benefits.html
Windows Installer is becoming the "de facto" software installation technology on Windows. Being preinstalled on the latest Microsoft operating systems, and also bundled with the most popular productivity packages (Office, etc.) this software installer provides a significant number of power features that improve application management and administration.	Windows Installer is the standard software installation technology on Windows. Built-in on all recent Windows operating systems, or installed through Windows Update, this software installer is today's requirement for successful application management and administration.
Advanced Installer makes MSI creation a snap Our software installer simplifies the process of building Windows Installer packages by providing a very easy to use, high level interface to the underlying technology. The program implements all the Windows Installer rules and follows all the advised best practices. With this simple, intuitive interface, ...	WiXAware makes MSI creation effortless The WiXAware software installer simplifies the task of building Windows Installer packages by providing a simple, XML based high level description of the underlying complexity of Windows Installer. This description is based on WiX, and helps WiXAware observe all Windows Installer authoring rules and comply with setup best practices. WiXAware offers a simple, intuitive interface ...
Advanced Installer integrates in automated build tools The Advanced Installer project files are stored in XML format. This way, they can be easily checked into a version control system. The software installer also operates at command line, ...	WiXAware integrates with automated build tools and version control Because WiX projects are plain text XML files, they can easily be checked into version control, and scanned for differences between versions. The WiX toolkit also includes command line compilers, ...
More and suggest new features Many more features are available. Just download Advanced Installer and give it a try. ...	Got ideas for more? WiXAware has a lot more than fits on a web site - just download and find out! ...

Note that the last paragraph heading is in red or organge on both web sites.

They did it before

This is not the first time InstallAware copied a competitor's web site layout: In January 2006 Macrovision Corp. sent a legal letter to InstallAware Corp. requesting that they stop using the layout and text from the zerog.com web site. That was some time after Macrovision had acquired Zero G. The letter is available at InstallAware’s web site at www.installaware.com/threat/ .

[Edit (Dec 12): InstallAware today changed the link. It now points to an open letter to me (same as in the comment below), but here's a copy of the legal letter from Macrovision to InstallAware.]

Unfortunately by the time they sent the letter, Macrovision had already redesigned the zerog.com web site to integrate it with the macrovision.com site. Therefore InstallAware took the chance to make Macrovision look bad: "Macrovision Corporation Uses Legal Scare Tactics Against Emerging Competitor InstallAware Software Corporation". Later, InstallAware also changed their web site so there's no more similarity today.

But with the help of archive.org you can go back in time and look at the web sites:


www.zerog.com as of September 10, 2005	www.installaware.com as of December 15, 2005

Sinan Karaca, founder of InstallAware Softwware Corp., did not yet reply to my request for a comment.

If you are more interested in a review of the WiXAware product, please visit:

ShardDevelop supports WiX, with Dialog Editor

stefan — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 19:08:00 GMT

SharpDevelop is a open-source IDE for C# and VB.NET, basically an alternative to Visual Studio. It integrates WiX, the open-source "Windows Installer XML Toolset" to build MSI setups, and even has a visual dialog editor for Windows Installer dialogs.

http://community.sharpdevelop.net/blogs/mattward/archive/2006/09/17/WixIntegration.aspx

Should Visual Studio use WiX for Setup Projects? A poll.

stefan — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:04:00 GMT

Many users are not quite happy with Setup & Deployment projects in Visual Studio today. And indeed they are very limited and only expose a small subset of the powerful Windows Installer functionality.

WiX is an open source tool for authoring Windows Installer setups. It was called "Microsoft's first open source project" because many of the developers in the WiX team are Microsoft employees. Micrsoft is also using WiX internally, to build the setups for Office and SQL Server, and is planning to use it to package the next version of Visual Studio code named "Orcas". But Microsoft currently doesn't plan to include WiX in Visual Studio for building msi setups, instead of the Setup & Deployment project type.

Rob Mensching, the leader of the WiX team, has started an informal poll on his blog, trying to convince the Visual Studio team to replace S&D projects with WiX.

You can read the article and post your vote at http://blogs.msdn.com/robmen/archive/2006/09/18/761580.aspx