What's Up with Windows Installer in SolidWorks 2004

I have never liked the Windows Installer method for SolidWorks and had
always opted for the Traditional method.

Now that all users are "forced" to employ the WI method with SWKS
2004, many individuals are probably dealing with it for the first
time?!

The recent reports of installation, service pack appliication and
rollback problems would suggest that the WI method is getting more
troublesome; however, I have to wonder if the sudden increase in use
of the WI may simply be acting to shed light on issues that are no
worse than before?

On the other hand, perhaps the increasing size of the SolidWorks
program (and its Ad-In applications) have begun to bring the WI method
to the brink of failure.

To use SP2.1 as an example, how can it take longer to update
SolidWorks SP2.0 (with a relatively small 7Mb patch) than it did to
install the Entire program in the first place?

How can upgrading with a 7Mb patch result in a text-based log file
that is 1.2Mb in size?

How can the associated eDrawing update (also roughly 7Mb) use the WI
so efficiently while completing the process with relative lightning
speed?

I'd certainly be interested to know what percentage of the users were
relying solely upon the Traditional installation method, prior to the
release of SWKS 2004.

I have to think that the usage of the WI method used to be rather
small by comparison or it worked rather well with previous SolidWorks
major releases and is just starting to break down in 2004.

What's the consensus?

Per O. Hoel

 

Windows Installer is Microsoft "technology" : it keeps track of everything,
just in case...
It *might* be that disabling restore points *could* make things faster.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d..._restore_points_and_the_windows_installer.asp
Didn't knew that soon enough, but I will definitely try it for SP3...

Looks from my (huge) log file that SW SP2.1 patches a lot of small things in
many files while
eDrawing contains less but larger patches.

Wow! I didn't even notice that my "sw2004-1.0-2.1-i.log" was 14.7 Mb long !

But everything is possible in IT (Information Theory):
the C program below is 133 chars long and produces 15'000 decimals of pi!
(fast, and with integer numbers only!)

a[52514],b,c=52514,d,e,f=1e4,g,h;
main(){for(;b=c-=14;h=printf("%04d",e+d/f))
for(e=d%=f;g=--b*2;d/=g)
d=d*b+f*(h?a:f/5),a=d%--g;}

 

We've always used the traditional install in the past. We have 3 seats
that I maintain plus two home seats that I maintain. With the problems
it's causing me I'm close to reccommending we drop Subscription service
in the future if they don't bring back the Install Shield option. The
WI problems and support time required just aren't worth it.

Dave H

 

<SNIP>

Per,

My download of SP2.1 from SP1.0 was somewhere around 75MB.
Where did you get a patch that was only 7MB?

Were looking at Unigraphics now that we've been purchased by a company that already uses UG.

Malcontent

 

0.0 to 2.1 = 151 MB

 

Yep, that's true, imho. I've done two WI in the past and they were just
as bad or worse, TI is much easier and faster as well as uninstalling
them.
I would think SW Corp has/had enough data that the TI was used the most
often?
With previous Windows versions being phased out, the WI has to be a M$
compliance issue.
The users are being forced to use the WI... so, more complaints.

...

 

here's a nice upgrade process.

I'll just ignore the fact that WI at one point told me it would be over 4
HOURS to complete the upgrade!!

overall time was roughly an hour.

1. begin upgrade.
2. insert CD1.
3. insert CD2.
3. "Upgrade done. Wanna reboot?" Sure!!!
4. Wait.
5. Wait?
6. Uh...why am I still waiting???
7. "Please Insert CD3"
8. Huh?
9. Insert CD3.
10. Wait.
11. "Unable to reboot automatically. Please do it yourself."
12. Ooooo-kaaaayyy.
13. Reboot.
14. Wait.
15. Restart SW.

What the heck is up with CD3 AFTER the upgrade is done?

--nick e.

 

We've always used the traditional installer.

I wonder if some of the long patch times are due to having other SW
installations? The three of us have 2001+ still on our machines for old
products and all had fairly painful (we weren't timing them) upgrades (two
of us from SP0, one from SP1).


Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems