I'm already using different InstallShield versions for about 10 years now but what they did with InstallShield 2008... it gives me headache! :mad:
For our previous productrelease, we used InstallShield 11 Premier. No real problems with this one. It was rather easy to debug, the custom actions were executed quickly, etc...
Since we needed to support Windows VISTA in our next product release, we decided to update to InstallShield 2008.
I must admit, the migration from InstallShield 11 to InstallShield 2008 was no problem(all issues found where documented and could be solved rather easily).
After that the problems started. First of all, try to debug remotely. We have a project with 40+ Custom Actions(less Custom Actions is not a solution because we have 10 custom dialogs with 7 buttons on it. Every click on such a button needs to trigger 1(or 2) custom actions. All actions that needs to happen when clicking on a button on such a dialog is calculated at run time).
For every custom action, you need to point to the location of the script files. Can they not store where I keep my script files when I selected the path the first time. I'm not going to move my script files during debugging?! :rolleyes:
Another thing: our installer takes 30+ minutes to install. I've changed a function(called via a custom action) at the end of the installer and I want to verify if this works. With Installshield 11 you say run to(or set a breakpoint) and you go to have a coffee. Not with InstallShield 2008, since it needs to know for every CA where the script files are.
Also, since they initialize and deinitialize each custom action seperately, it slows down our installer with 50%!!! It takes 2seconds for a custom action to init and deinit.
You understand my frustration?!
I always think that they improve when making a new release but now it is totally not the case. This will increase my development/testing time with 25%!
