Building installation packages

Installation packages

The building of installation packages is the last step in building Apache OpenOffice. It takes place in the main/instsetoo_native module. It basically consists of collecting all files that are to be installed and putting them into an archive that can be installed on the targeted operating system. The installation technique depends on the operating system:

Windows

An MSI that is run by setup.exe. For the download version the msi and setup.exe are wrapped by an NSIS installer.
The setup.exe is built as loader2.exe in main/desktop/win32/source/setup/. Reads an upgrade key from setup.ini. If that key exists in the Windows registry and if setup.exe finds any .msp files then the already installed office is upgraded instead of installed.

Linux

A set of RPM or DEB packages that are installed by distribution specific package managers.

MacOSX

A DMG archive that is (can be?) copied into the /Application directory.

Installation packages are created by Perl script main/solenv/bin/make_installer.pl and a larger number of Perl modules in main/solenv/bin/modules/installer/. The make_installer.pl script is run by the makefile main/instsetoo_native/util/makefile.mk.

Patch sets

A patch differs from a full installation package in that it only contains the modified files. For the update from AOO 3.4 to 3.4.1 this leads to size reduction of roughly 90%.

The structure, content and creation of patch sets depends on the operating system.

Windows

On Windows there are Windows Installer patches (or .msp files) similar to installation packages (or .msi files). These are self-contained packages that, for example on double-click from the file explorer, perform the update automatically and without the need for further applications.

Msi and msp files are COM Structured Storages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COM_Structured_Storage) and (at least in the case of AOO) contain at least two streams. One contains the files to install or update, and the other holds a relational database whose tables contain information about the installation (for msi files) or update process (for msp files).

The msi and msp databases can be read or modified in three different ways, each of which depends on the Windows Installer SDK (current version for Windows 7 is 5.0) which is contained in the MS Windows SDK:

1. Through a set of executables that can read and modify msi and msp files. Msidb.exe (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa370083%28v=vs.85%29.aspx) gives read and write access to the database stream. Msimsp.exe creates the msp patch file.
2. By using the Windows Script Host together with the WiRunSQL.vbs script to access the database stream via SQL commands.
3. A custom program that uses the Patchwiz.dll to get access to the database stream.

Tables can not be deleted from the database stream with method 1 but with method 2. Never tried method 3.

Windows MSP updates can have three different types (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa370579%28v=vs.85%29.aspx for more details):

Small Updates

Changes to the msi file and application files. No change of either ProductCode nor ProductVersion

Minor Upgrades

No Change to ProductCode.
Change of the ProductVersion

Major Upgrades

Change the installation into a different product.
Change of the ProduceCode.

So, a minor upgrade is the one best suited for Apache OpenOffice updates, because we don't change the product but only the version number.

Creating a msp patch is basically quite simple:

1. Take two msi files, the old version that is to be patched, and the new target version. Lets call them msi_o and msi_t.
2. Check the product codes in both msi files ("ProductCode" in the "Property" table). They have to be the same. Modify the product code in msi_t if they are not.
3. Create a local pcp file that controls the patch creation process:
   1. Copy the template.pcp provided by the Windows Installer SDK to, say, aoo_update.pcp.
   2. Update the properies in its "PatchMetadata" table (basically metadata that describe who updates what and when).
   3. Update some values in the "Properties" table:
      • Set PatchOutputPath to the name of the resulting msp patch file.
      • Set PatchGUID to a newly created UUID.
   4. Add a row to the "ImageFamilies" table with generic data for the msi that is to be patched.
   5. Add a row to the "UpgradedImages" table with generic data for the patch target.
   6. Remove the "PatchSequence".
4. Run MsiMsp.exe on the aoo_update.pcp file. It creates the msp patch file and log data. For this it compares the set of files contained in the two msi files (but it also expects these files already unpacked from the msi on disk).
5. The log data can be converted to human readable form (HTML pages) with the wilogutl.exe command.

The resulting msp patch file can be run from the Windows file explorer and will turn a previously installed msi_o into a what installation of msi_t would result in. Well, almost. Experiments have shown that there are some subtle differences. One is that the about box still read Apache OpenOffice 3.4.0 instead of 3.4.1. But that may be a "feature" of the update mode.

Current state

Current state of support for creating patches in the OpenOffice build system:

• The msi files created by the make_installer.pl (see #Installation packages above) for some reason can not be run stand-alone. An enclosing NSIS installer has to be run instead.
• The make_installer.pl scripts does already have some support for creating msp patches. This feature, however, is not activated and thus can not be triggered by the instsetoo_native makefile.
• make_installer.pl creates a new and random product code GUID on every run. This has to be changed for supporting msp patch files. The product code has to remain constant between updates. There is already some support for constant product codes (see instsetoo_native/inc_openoffice/windows/msi_templates) but that is not yet active.