micovec's comments

On: Lenovo May Be Avoiding 'Windows Tax' via Cheaper Laptops with Preinstalled Linux

[micovec]

Yep, Windows tax is real.

In last september I bought Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 without any OS preinstalled for around $100 less than the exactly same model with Windows.

On: Twenty years maintaining the WiX Toolset

[micovec]

I have to agree with others here. It's better to use Wix as a thin layer on top of Windows Installer but the documentation is very, very poor.

I spent a week of trial and error to create an installer just to find out that I had several installations of my app because of some misconfigured xml document from testing. A nightmare to uninstall to say the least.

I highly recommend to test your installers inside a VM or you'll screw up your system.

Also good luck if you want custom behaviour from the installer. The documentation for that is far worse than it is for the standard msi installer.

[jasonjayr → micovec]

I recently learned about the "Windows Sandbox"

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/applicati...

Perfect for testing things that might screw up a Windows system in a 'clean' environment.

[Kwpolska → jasonjayr]

Sandbox is great in general, but it might not work for working with something deeply integrated into Windows (I remember some installer failing because a Microsoft thing wouldn’t install).

> Pristine: Every time Windows Sandbox runs, it's as clean as a brand-new installation of Windows.

I can see my custom fonts in the Sandbox. Which makes me wonder, what else is not actually pristine about it?

[micovec → jasonjayr]

This is very handy! Especially for installers. Thanks, I'll write it to my list of handy tools.