So, this is not a direct Windows Azure post, but I use it also on my roles, so here it goes:
I've been looking for a decent alternative to what I was using in the past for my installations, that is InstallAware. Sometimes things were randomly breaking (support for .NET, SQL Server installations failing for nothing etc) all because of the re-packaging habbit of the InstallAware engineers. Then I found Advanced Installer.
I use it on my Windows Azure roles whenever I want to do a chain install (MSI 4.5) and instead of doing startup tasks one by one, I just create an MSI package using it and do everything in there. It's fast, it's reliable and it works.
I also use it on installation solutions for the software we get out through my company. Updates support is a really cool thing that I was looking to just work out of the box, instead of having to necessarily wrap it around some clusmy scripting code.
It might get a little time to find out how you might be able to do something, some polishing details are missing but they listen to feedback and they update it regurarly so sooner or later what you ask, we'll make it to a version.
All in all, I'll give a 8.5/10 to the product, not because I can find something better that combines usability/price etc, but just because those details are missing and to tease the Advanced Installer team to get even better :)
PK.
