Where is good, comprehensive training covering the Windows Installer?
Our friend and blogger Aaron Stebner asked on behalf of his readers whether the Windows Installer had recommendations for "good, comprehensive training covering" the Windows Installer. This question comes up regularly and I've built up the following stock answer.
Windows Installer depends on our tools vendors to provide a considerable portion of our end to end story. There is an opportunity for the Tools Vendors to differentiate themselves in the market with the degree to which they onboard their users quickly and given them all the information they need to be successful.
Where education value from the tools vendors is not available or incomplete, one can drop down and build expertise in bare metal Windows Installer. One should expect bare metal Windows Installer expertise does take time to build as we are a system technology with a lot of interdependencies with other parts of the system (the nature of being an installer). What we provide is the Windows Installer portion of the Windows Platform Software Development Kit which contains a lot of information on ‘what?’ is in Windows Installer but has very little ‘why?’, ‘when?’, and 'how do I?'.
There is a broad range of resources available in the community for someone to build their expertise. In the Platform SDK, there is a topic “Other Sources of Windows Installer Information” which a long list of links to things like Whitepapers, Newsgroups, Blogs, Web Sites, Tools Vendors, Chat transcripts, and Knowledge Base articles.
If you’re interested in direct hands on help on a particular incident, there are a set of experts in Microsoft Product Support and Services that have deep knowledge of the Windows Installer. They are kind of hard to find so you may have to ask for the Windows Installer support team directly. If you’re in interested in training a group within your company, Microsoft Consulting Services does offer a week long on-site training on the Windows Installer. Mark Lathrope has provided the MCS services in the past.
One of the Windows Installer Most Valuable Professionals, Phil Wilson, has written a book “The Definitive Guide to Windows Installer” that I’ve heard good reviews about. Inside the Windows Installer team, Phil's book is on the list of new hire resources we recommend folks use to ramp up.
Another of the Windows Installer Most Valuable Professionals, Stefan Kruger, runs a web site https://installsite.org which offers training as well a number of other services. As I view Stefan's catalog of classes, most of Stefan's classes are specific to the authoring application that one uses to author packages.
I've noticed that when I give this answer in person, customers have appeared a bit deflated as they were hoping for more from the Windows Installer team itself. For us, it's a tough trade-off as building better training and education competes with building features into the engine that folks would like us to have.
[Author: Robert Flaming]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified at https://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm.
Comments
Anonymous
September 08, 2007
PingBack from http://www.doctordeploy.com/blog/tools-vendors/where-is-good-comprehensive-training-covering-the-windows-installer/Anonymous
September 12, 2007
Experience is key. I didn't really fully grasp and understand Windows Installer until I really started to dig into it. Training can be beneficial, but it won't make much sense until you use it in practice. I can concur that Phil Wilson's book is one of the best on the subject, but again, it takes a lot of experience.Anonymous
October 01, 2007
Having attended one of his courses and passing the exam, I'd also like to recommend the training offered by Darwin Sanoy of DesktopEngineer.com. A week long course delving into everything about authoring for and supporting Windows Installer with an associated certification examination at the end.Anonymous
November 03, 2007
InstallWorld also offers custom Windows Installer training as well as WiX training. You can contact with them for further information at http://www.installworld.comAnonymous
November 06, 2007
The comment has been removed