Hi, I'm using Compose for internship and we have to build up our case for any decision we make. My q...

# compose-desktop

[tieskedh]

Hi, I'm using Compose for internship and we have to build up our case for any decision we make.
My question is: is there a real difference between the exe and the MSI, generated by Compose?

I found some points which I believe do not apply:
• The GUI can be customised a lot more -> the GUI's are the same?
• Multiple MSI can be installed with one EXE -> I belief this isn't used
• Because of the possibility to customize, it is more difficult to program -> we don't program
• It can run without admin-rights in certain circumstances -> when just copying files, granted file is trusted
But as it seems EXE uses the MSI file, this isn't used either.

Therefor my question: is there a real difference, between MSI and EXE, or did I miss something?

Thanks

[Alexander Suraphel]

I think this StackOverflow thread answers your question.

[tieskedh]

Thank you,

But in this case the control is handed over to compose as they generate the exe. Therefor, the complete control doesn't apply, I think?

For copying resources only, I can understand but I saw my installer getting triggered when I installed with exe. Therefor, those also doesn't apply, I think?

This means the one benefit which could apply is installing multiple MSI's. Does Compose use that?

[David W]

Msi means that downloads are only a single file, whereas Exe allows you to have differential updates.
Since the Compose runtime/dependencies are probably going to be the majority of your application and weigh 100+ MB, having differential self-updating might be a nice thing. Depends on your users.

[David W]

Updates for my Compose program are generally less than 5MB, whereas if I'd used Msi they'd be closer to 150MB

[David W]

Possibly distributing the initial download using Msi but generating a dist using Exe and using that for self-update would work, haven't tried.

[tieskedh]

Thank you for your answer.

I think this is related to: https://github.com/JetBrains/compose-jb/issues/1056 and https://github.com/JetBrains/compose-jb/issues/1049

Is what you describe already implemented?

I did found that it is possible to specify an upgradeUUID, but I didn't find the lightweight versions.