MSI Installer upadate?

[Old Bruce]

3 hours ago, stuck said:

So does, "An app. a day keep the doc. away?"

And further to that: One Apple every eight hours keeps three PhDs away.

[henryg]

On 1/31/2023 at 5:26 PM, Old Bruce said:

And further to that: One Apple every eight hours keeps three PhDs away.

No, one Apple a day leads to severe financial problems. It's why I use Windows...oh, apart from my iPhone of course 😁

[jimh12345]

No doubt this has been asked before, but threads get long and tedious to search...

I want to switch from MSIX to MSI - what's the order to follow?   Uninstall the MSIX first, or after installing the MSI version?  

[walt.farrell]

15 minutes ago, jimh12345 said:

I want to switch from MSIX to MSI - what's the order to follow?   Uninstall the MSIX first, or after installing the MSI version?  

Either order should work.

However, if you have both installed, it can be difficult to tell which one you're dealing with, as both will have the same name in the Windows Start menu. You can right-click on one of them and look at the list of recently-used files to get a hint. Or you can try Uninstalling one of them. If you end up in the Control Panel that is the MSI-based version, so you'll want to Uninstall the other one. So, for simplicity, uninstall the MSIX then install the MSI and that will probably be less confusing.

[jimh12345]

Thanks Walt.

[John Rostron]

On 2/6/2023 at 3:48 PM, jimh12345 said:

I want to switch from MSIX to MSI - what's the order to follow?   Uninstall the MSIX first, or after installing the MSI version?  

I installed the new msi versions without uninstalling the msix versions. In Windows Uninstall it listed both versions with installation date, thus I could easily recognize which was the msix version to delete.

John

[Pšenda]

3 hours ago, John Rostron said:

I installed the new msi versions without uninstalling the msix versions.

I read an opinion on the forum that an application installed with MSI is faster/more agile than the MSIX version (possible effect of sandboxing). Can you confirm this?

[walt.farrell]

22 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

I read an opinion on the forum that an application installed with MSI is faster/more agile than the MSIX version (possible effect of sandboxing). Can you confirm this?

I don't think anyone has confirmed this for sure, yet.

[John Rostron]

@Pšendaasked: I read an opinion on the forum that an application installed with MSI is faster/more agile than the MSIX version (possible effect of sandboxing). Can you confirm this?

8 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I don't think anyone has confirmed this for sure, yet.

I cannot say that I have noticed anything.

John

[lphilpot]

No different for me, either. I prefer the MSI install, but I know of no reason why it should be faster if both are properly installed. That is unless Serif is doing some behind-the-scenes voodoo that the MSIX paradigm won't allow ...which is extremely unlikely and I have no idea what it would be anyway.  😁

[Pšenda]

15 minutes ago, lphilpot said:

some behind-the-scenes voodoo

For example, sandboxing to encapsulate and protect applications definitely requires some OS overhead that can affect their performance. The size of this influence may then depend on the configuration and performance of the PC, so it may not even be visible (it may not be noticeable at the user level).

[debraspicher]

Feel free to check using benchmarks for a difference between MSI and MSIX. My GPU takes an up to 20% hit for my GPU under MSIX, so as far as I am concerned, it's no bueno on my machine...

We did comparisons starting here:

New thread here for official MSIX benchies here:

 

[lphilpot]

I've come to the conclusion my AMD GPU OpenCL drivers are buggy (similar video subsystem crash issues in AP and other software) so I've disabled it in AP. Maybe that's why I'm not seeing any difference. 

[debraspicher]

2 minutes ago, lphilpot said:

I've come to the conclusion my AMD GPU OpenCL drivers are buggy (similar video subsystem crash issues in AP and other software) so I've disabled it in AP. Maybe that's why I'm not seeing any difference. 

[Pšenda]

35 minutes ago, debraspicher said:

New thread here for official MSIX benchies here:

Just curious - why is this in the bug thread?
I thought the point of this thread was to get as many users as possible to participate in the app speed test. But if it's in a bug report forum, most users won't even notice it. But maybe there's a reason that's not obvious to me.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Pšenda

[lphilpot]

1 hour ago, debraspicher said:

Thanks for the pointer. To be honest, given the amount of time I spend in Photo I'll have to decide if it's worth the trouble. If I was doing this professionally all day long, definitely, but I'm not. Plus, my (Ryzen 5700 8 core) laptop has a dinky little embedded GPU which isn't too powerful so it's not a huge loss. And on top of that, last time I tried to update all AMD drivers, something (chipset driver maybe?) interacted with my USB dock driver and I had to back out all the newer AMD drivers to (more or less) fix it.

Man... if Serif offered Photo on Linux, I'd go back. Almost everything else I use has a Linux version and they generally run faster / better there. Oh well...

[jimh12345]

I had to disable the graphics hardware acceleration in AP - it was crashing constantly.  And I think I've had to disable it for every other photo editing program I've ever used.  IMHO, graphics acceleration is a technology that never delivered on its promise - probably because the card makers cared only about gamers and crypto miners.   How many times have we been blown off by software vendors, when we reported problems, with "have you updated your video drivers?" or "try a newer video card".    That's not how it was supposed to work. 

[debraspicher]

11 minutes ago, lphilpot said:

Thanks for the pointer. To be honest, given the amount of time I spend in Photo I'll have to decide if it's worth the trouble. If I was doing this professionally all day long, definitely, but I'm not. Plus, my (Ryzen 5700 8 core) laptop has a dinky little embedded GPU which isn't too powerful so it's not a huge loss. And on top of that, last time I tried to update all AMD drivers, something (chipset driver maybe?) interacted with my USB dock driver and I had to back out all the newer AMD drivers to (more or less) fix it.

Man... if Serif offered Photo on Linux, I'd go back. Almost everything else I use has a Linux version and they generally run faster / better there. Oh well...

When I tried an AMD GPU (5000 series) in this machine, the lag was ridiculous and surprising. I would say not usable. Night and day in performance... (Edit: I have numerous older NVidia cards that ran perfectly fine...)

[lphilpot]

7 minutes ago, jimh12345 said:

I had to disable the graphics hardware acceleration in AP - it was crashing constantly.  And I think I've had to disable it for every other photo editing program I've ever used.

The crashes I saw with Photo were the same as I occasionally got with darktable. After doing some operation, often when I was playing with a slider (back and forth to see the effect) the UI would freeze then first the laptop's built in display would be covered in a small black and green herringbone-like pattern, followed by the same on the secondary (external) monitor where I was working. The mouse pointer could move, but clicking did nothing and without knowing the keyboard focus it was of no use even if it was working (no way to tell).

I don't think the entire OS hung, I think it was just the display subsystem, However without any kind of usable video interface I had no option but to hold down the power button. This is Windows Home, so I can't RDP into it. No other option but to power cycle.

Since this is a laptop I can't substitute nor upgrade the GPU.

[jimh12345]

4 minutes ago, lphilpot said:

The crashes I saw with Photo were the same as I occasionally got with darktable. After doing some operation, often when I was playing with a slider (back and forth to see the effect) the UI would freeze then first the laptop's built in display would be covered in a small black and green herringbone-like pattern, followed by the same on the secondary (external) monitor where I was working. The mouse pointer could move, but clicking did nothing and without knowing the keyboard focus it was of no use even if it was working (no way to tell).

I don't think the entire OS hung, I think it was just the display subsystem, However without any kind of usable video interface I had no option but to hold down the power button. This is Windows Home, so I can't RDP into it. No other option but to power cycle.

Since this is a laptop I can't substitute nor upgrade the GPU.

I think because everyone (card makers and software vendors) treats hardware acceleration as optional, no one ever fixes all their bugs.  It's easier and cheaper to just "suggest" turning it off.  Or if you're a card maker, tell your customers their 2-year-old card is now unsupported and they should buy the latest model. 

[RogerFx]

On 1/27/2023 at 6:33 PM, lphilpot said:

Others can correct me if / where I'm wrong...

MSI (unsandboxed) is one of the standard Windows installers as you've used in the past. They generally (but are not required to) put their files under C:\Program Files (for 64 bit apps) or C:\Program Files (x86) (for 32-bit apps). "MSI" refers to Microsoft Installer and the file is actually a database that the installer itself uses to install the app in question. If the file extension is EXE, that's just a standard executable file which wraps up the MSI and is sometimes called a bootstrapper as it assists with install options and compatibility. Both MSI and EXE use the Microsoft Installer services - One triggers it from the "document" side, the other from the "executable" side. This has been the standard means for installing Windows programs for years.

MSIX (sandboxed) is the installer for an application that's packaged as a sandboxed application. "MSIX" refers to Microsoft Installer Extended" (I think). These programs install under C:\Program Files\WindowsApps and have much more stringent security applied to them by default.

In both MSI and MSIX cases the underlying application files that are installed are the same, it's just a difference in how they're "delivered" to your computer, where they're installed and other implications of the difference of install / operation methods.

Pros / Cons (I'm sure there are more and there will be debate on whether they're Pros or Cons)

• MSI Pros - It's the de facto standard for installers, is well-known, well-understood and reasonably safe assumptions can be made about the installation (from a technical viewpoint). Third-party interactions are much easier due to those assumptions generally being correct. This last one is primarily what has driven the appearance of the Affinity 2 MSIs.
   
• MSI Cons - Application security is up to the application itself for the most part, there's no default (i.e., OS-level) update mechanism so the app/user has to check for updates. Only one MSI can run at any one time, and may require multiple reboots. Installing one MSI sometimes breaks another, though not if they are well written.
   
• MSIX Pros - They're automatically updated with much smaller patches, they're in a more secure (i.e., harder to access) location, they're all consistently installed (which may be a pro or con). Patches can be installed in parallel.
   
• MSIX Cons - Third party (app) interop is often more difficult due to file inaccessibility because of the MS store security model. It's sometimes difficult to even access (i.e., view) the installed program's file structure due to the security of higher-level "parent" directories (sandboxing). You're subject to Microsoft's or the app vendor's whims when it comes to updates (pro or con depending on your viewpoint and / or needs).

There may be more -- I've probably forgotten something obvious.

Executive Summary -- By packaging the Affinity apps as MSIX (store) apps, third party app interaction was broken in many cases. Serif decided to offer the standard MSI installers as an option for those who wished to use them since they tend to be more interop-compatible with other applications. Same app either way - It's just how it's installed.

Hello

Would like to see if some can help me in a doubt that I guess it would have to be some one from Serif to answer.

In my case I would prefer MSI exactly due to the reason of third party app interop.  but my doubt would be how quick the MSI updates will happen? same as MSIX? or MSI will be available always a few weeks later?

Comments much appreciated. Thank you.

 

 

[lphilpot]

3 minutes ago, RogerFx said:

In my case I would prefer MSI exactly due to the reason of third party app interop.  but my doubt would be how quick the MSI updates will happen? same as MSIX? or MSI will be available always a few weeks later?

I don't work at Serif so I have no idea how their internal procedures "flow", but logically speaking now that the packaging workflow for v2 MSI is presumably defined, there should be no reason why they wouldn't be released simultaneously. The availability of MSI installers for 2.0.4 was an after-the-fact fix, but going forward I hope they're concurrent.

[xavierbaez]

Yeah let’s hope 

[Patrick Connor]

5 minutes ago, RogerFx said:

but my doubt would be how quick the MSI updates will happen? same as MSIX? or MSI will be available always a few weeks later?

The Sandboxed MSIX and unsandboxed MSI installers are meant to always be coincident (released at the same time). 2.0.4 being a bit later was an outlier

[xavierbaez]

Thanks @Patrick Connor you’re the man! 👨🏽