The VideoLAN Forums

I recently started working ina primary school as a administrator and technician and descovered they have confiured VLC to be installed via a .msi file which I beleive was created by a previous staff member some time ago ( well before I started here)

Is there an official method or working method to create an up to date verson since the version installed is a few years out of date.

I've serached google for help with this but havnt found anything as of yet and dont have a great deal of time to dedicate to building an install should I need to do it manually... if I do I just need the methods how.

I greaatly appreciate any help and want to just mention I'd spend all the time in the world figuing this out if onl I had other staff members helping but since I'm the only Admin serving the whole Primary school I'm constantly dealing with teacher queries.

We don't have an official .msi for VLC.

Most sysadmins I know install the nightly VLC as this does come in msi format. Not ideal, but it works. Just choose the nightly closest to the release of the version. For example, 2.2.0's last nightly before release is:
http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win ... 0227-0203/

After this version the nightly becomes 2.2.1.

While this is far from ideal, VideoLAN's refusal to issue an official msi means this is our only option.
I'd stay away from 'unofficial' msi packagers of which there are a few out there. You never know what else they might have packaged in there...

While this is far from ideal, VideoLAN's refusal to issue an official msi means this is our only option.
I'd stay away from 'unofficial' msi packagers of which there are a few out there. You never know what else they might have packaged in there...

It's not a refusal, it's just that it's not working fine, so we don't officialize it.

Patches welcome.

My apologies JB! That is great to hear!

Folks at these two sites might be able to assist with any problems you're having. I believe their MSI's work, I just think we'd all prefer to download an official MSI instead.
http://www.compit.se/?p=417
http://www.techygeekshome.co.uk/2014/08 ... eased.html

Well, we need to create them with open source tools

Which tool are you currently using? WiX Toolset?

Not that I claim to have used it...
http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/105638/ ... aller-with

And more useful info on WiX here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3104 ... s-from-wix

While this is far from ideal, VideoLAN's refusal to issue an official msi means this is our only option.
I'd stay away from 'unofficial' msi packagers of which there are a few out there. You never know what else they might have packaged in there...

Unofficial MSI are also very likely illegal in that they most certainly do not conform to the GPL copyright license. Anyone distributing them could be sued by any single of many many authors of VLC or underlying libraries.

As JB pointed out already, the MSI needs to be generated with OSS tools.

Thanks Rémi. Are we likely to see an official MSI with the release of 2.2.1 or 3.0.0 do you think?
I believe you would see a huge increase in adoption of VLC as a result of offering an MSI installer

Until someone comes up with a reliable, practical and legal approach to a MSI, there will not be an official MSI. That is a feature of the corporate kind. It is unlikely to be dealt with by hobbyists.

Also, this is just my very own personal opinion but... I do not really care for "a huge increase in adoption of VLC". I care about new developers (hobbyists, salaried or contracted), new community members and new donators. I do not care about corporations deploying VLC on a large scale and contributing nothing (except perhaps low quality bug reports).

(EDIT: typo)

I don't see why you can't just use WiX to create the msi. It's open source and has a huge user base and support community.
http://wixtoolset.org

IMO the larger the VLC user base is the better, as more exposure means it is more likely you'll see contributions and donations, despite some corporate leeching. We can agree to disagree

I don't see why you can't just use WiX to create the msi. It's open source and has a huge user base and support community.
http://wixtoolset.org

Official builds of VLC for Windows are cross-compiled from Linux for various reasons, not all of them historical. From a quick glance WiX does not seem to support cross-builds.

IMO the larger the VLC user base is the better, as more exposure means it is more likely you'll see contributions and donations, despite some corporate leeching. We can agree to disagree

What I meant is, hobbyists have at least as many disincentives against as incentives for working on corporate-only features.
Specifically, if an official MSI for VLC was so important, then the necessary resources would have been dedicated thereto. I would in fact argue that the continued lack of an official MSI installer establishes its unimportance.

VLC .msi is generated with wix, of course, on linux, using mono.