InstallSite Blog

Microsoft is looking for an InstallShield Engineer in Boston, MA

Lauren Day, a full time recruiter for Microsoft contacted me because they have an immediate need for an InstallShield engineer in Boston MA. Here's the description:

Video Interview with the DIFx Team

DIFx is the Driver Installation Framework, an add-on that enables Windows Installer setups to install device drivers. On Channel 9 you can watch a video with two members of Microsoft's DIFx team. No deep technical details, it's more about "what and why" and the difficulties they were facing.

http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=237817

ShardDevelop supports WiX, with Dialog Editor

SharpDevelop is a open-source IDE for C# and VB.NET, basically an alternative to Visual Studio. It integrates WiX, the open-source "Windows Installer XML Toolset" to build MSI setups, and even has a visual dialog editor for Windows Installer dialogs.

http://community.sharpdevelop.net/blogs/mattward/archive/2006/09/17/WixIntegration.aspx

How UAC in Vista will impact your Setup (updated Oct 3)

Windows Vista introduces a security concept called User Account Control (UAC) which has multiple impacts on Windows Installer (MSI) based setups. Robert Flaming, Product manager on the MSI team at Microsoft, is posting a series of articles on his blog that explain what these changes are, and how they may break existing setups. So this is not about new features in MSI 4 that you may want to add to your setup some time in the future - it is about what you need to do NOW to make sure the setups you build TODAY will work on Vista.

Update (Sep 26): additional articles are available
Update (Oct 3): even more articles and some Q&A

The following article are already available:

Introduction

• Introduction to the UAC in MSI Notes series
• My view of the root problem
• Conficting Definitions of Per-User
• Just like Managed Installs
• Jagged edge to user
• A relief providing framework

Architecture Insights

• The "Saw Tooth" Diagram
• Credential Prompt and Permissions

Common Package Mistakes

• The AdminUser Mistake
• Modify System with InstallUISequence Custom Action
• Modify System with InstallExecuteSequence Custom Action Outside of Script
• The NoImpersonate Bit Mistake

More Architectural Insights

• My "Four Square" Diagram
• Challenges for a Beautiful Custom Action
• O Whitepaper, Where Art Thou?
• Read the Friendly Manual

Conversations with Customers

• Should I write my installer as a Standard User install? If yes, how?
• When General Custom Action Mitigation Fails
• How do I get the shield on the advertised shortcut?
• How do I troubleshoot UAC in MSI via the log?
• Do I need to consider "this" when I'm designing for UAC in MSI? Generally, no.
• Is "this" intentional? If so, why?
• How to Build Packages that work for both Standard User and Per-Machine?
• Easier for my current custom installer to support UAC than switch to MSI?
• How do I get one credential dialog for a multiple package install?
• What are the Hurdles in Windows Vista Logo compliance related to UAC and MSI?
• Answers to questions in comments from earlier blog posts

Should Visual Studio use WiX for Setup Projects? A poll.

Many users are not quite happy with Setup & Deployment projects in Visual Studio today. And indeed they are very limited and only expose a small subset of the powerful Windows Installer functionality.

WiX is an open source tool for authoring Windows Installer setups. It was called "Microsoft's first open source project" because many of the developers in the WiX team are Microsoft employees. Micrsoft is also using WiX internally, to build the setups for Office and SQL Server, and is planning to use it to package the next version of Visual Studio code named "Orcas". But Microsoft currently doesn't plan to include WiX in Visual Studio for building msi setups, instead of the Setup & Deployment project type.

Rob Mensching, the leader of the WiX team, has started an informal poll on his blog, trying to convince the Visual Studio team to replace S&D projects with WiX.

You can read the article and post your vote at http://blogs.msdn.com/robmen/archive/2006/09/18/761580.aspx

Series on Visual Studio Setup and Deployment Projects

Phil Wison, a fellow Microsoft Windows Installer MVP, has published a series of three articles on Setup and Deployment Projects with Visual Studio. If your are building MSI setups with Visual Studio I highly recommend reading these articles.

1. Getting started with setup projects

Setup and deployment projects have always been a part of the Visual Studio.NET environment. Setup projects can be used to build various deployment packages, most notably Windows Installer setups packaged as MSI files.
I’ll start with a basic setup that installs a C# Windows forms program and adds a shortcut to it.

http://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/visual-studio/getting-started-with-setup-projects/

2. Visual Studio Setup - projects and custom actions

It’s often necessary to add your own code to a Visual Studio setup project, which is accomplished using custom actions. Custom actions are in contrast to the standard actions that Windows Installer performs during an installation. Examples of standard actions include copying files and registering COM servers.

http://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/visual-studio/visual-studio-setup---projects-and-custom-actions/

3. Updates to setup projects

When you need to build a new version of your setup project or ship fixes to it, it’s tempting to rebuild the project and try to install the MSI file. Doing so, however, typically launches a message box indicating that another version of the product is already installed and directing you to the control panel to uninstall it.
The primary reason for this is that the ProductCode Guid identifies the product to Windows. Since you have already installed the product identified by that Guid, you must use a Windows Installer update mechanism to install a new version of your product.

http://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/visual-studio/updates-to-setup-projects/

Deployment Models for ASP.NET Applications

This article in CoDe Magazine doesn't talk about Windows Installer or ClickOnce but covers the deployment models that are built into Visual Studio: In-place deployment, full pre-compilation and partial compilation.

Compilation and Deployment in ASP.NET 2.0

By: Rick Strahl 

It’s crucial to understand how your ASP.NET code compiles in order to debug your Web applications effectively. ASP.NET 2.0 has changed the way compilation and deployment works, and in this article I’ll dig in and show you how compilation works now and what has changed from ASP.NET 1.x.

http://www.code-magazine.com/Article.aspx?quickid=0609061

Adding Trial Functionality to your Application

Sample code has been posted on CodeProject.com that you can add to your application to turn it into a time limited trial version that your customers can unlock by entering a code. I haven't tested this tool and don't know how secure it is, but if you need trial functionality you may want to look at it. This sample is different than similar tools (from Macrovision for instance) in three points:

• It requires a modification of your source code.
• It doesn't require internet connection for activation. Instead customers need to contact you and provide a computer specific code (which means they have to call again if they want to move the software to a new machine)
• It's free and the source code is available publicly.

Application Trial Maker

It's very common to want to have trial version of your application. for example you want your application only run 30 days, or user can only run your application 200 times. You can do this kind of tasks with this class. And then if someone want to buy your application. he must call you and read his computer ID. then you will use Serial Maker to make Serial(Password). After entering Password application always will run as full version. If the trial period finished. reinstalling the application won't let user to run it. The computer id is 25 characters string that came from hardware information. ProccesorID, MainBoard Manufacturer, VGA name, HardDisk Serial number and etc. you can choose the hardware items you want to use to make Computer ID.

http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/Trial_Maker.asp

Provide real Feedback when pre-installing the .NET Framework (version 3)

In version 3 of the .NET framework redistributable (currently in beta) Microsoft added functionality to send progress information to the calling process. This enables setup.exe bootstrappers to provide a real progress bar while installing the framework. The bootstrapper can even cancel the framework install. Microsoft published a whitepaper that explains how to use this new functionality.

Tracking and Canceling a Silent .NET Framework 3.0 Setup Process

Present a customized or unified setup experience for applications that require the .NET Framework 3.0. This article explains how to silently launch, track, and cancel the .NET Framework 3.0 setup process.

Hopefully, installation tools vendors will add this functionality to the next release of their setup.exe bootstrappers.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/NETFX3StPrg.asp

Walkthough for Building Windows Installer Setups with Visual Studio

An article was posted on CodeProject.com that shows the steps it takes to create a Windows Installer (MSI) based setup using the Setup&Deployment project type in Visual Studio .NET 2003.

Deploy your Application or Component Using Windows Installer

When ever we heard about deployment of our application or component we get scared with the traditional scripted setup programs. The main goal of this article is to make .NET programmers to get used to this easy to setup program which allows you to deploy your application even if you don’t know how to write the setup script. Microsoft Dot Net Setup & Deployment will make the setup for you with simple clicks. It is also provided with self taught easy driven wizards. Many programmers who are using Microsoft Visual Studio Dot Net they are not fully aware of this windows installer that comes with Visual Studio; they are going for other setup programs that need’s hard scripting knowledge. Using Windows Installer is very easy.

I don't quite agree with that last sentence. Windows Installer is a great and powerful technology but often it's not really simply to use. Also Visual Studio generated Windows Instalelr packages are often not of the best quality.

http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/easysetup.asp