Serious issue with the .NET 3.5 installer on Windows Vista

Aaron Stebner reports an issue (some commenters call it a "nightmare") in the .NET Framework 3.5 installer that can cause a premature reboot request on Windows Vista. If the user accepts the reboot request while the framework installer or your own setup isn't completed yet, the system can end up in an unknown state.

The problem was identified in the beta of .NET 3.5, but will not be fixed in the release version. Aaron describes some workarounds to prevent this premature reboot request, and I highly recommend you add this to your prerequisite installer.

Published Friday, November 16, 2007 5:20 PM by stefan
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# Serious issue with the .NET 3.5 installer on Windows Vista

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Friday, November 16, 2007 11:00 AM by Windows Vista News

# re: Serious issue with the .NET 3.5 installer on Windows Vista

This is becoming typical for Microsoft.  I can recall the same `found too late` arguments from many Visual Studio bugs and low and behold they don't get fixed in subsequent SP releases either.

If this was my install and I knew it was going to be consumed by countless other installs, I would certainly be holding the presses before this was a nightmare in production.

Oh well, good thing I use InstallShield.  I'm sure the guys and gals in Schaumburg, IL will once again handle it so that all I have to do is add the prereq package to my install.

Saturday, November 17, 2007 12:52 PM by Christopher Painter

# re: Serious issue with the .NET 3.5 installer on Windows Vista

Come to think of it,  what interaction does the MSI Execute sequence and associated mutex have with Windows Update?

I've never dug this deep, but it would seem to make a lot of sense for Msi and WU to share a common mutex to make sure that only one of these services is allowed to make a state change at the same time.    

Saturday, November 17, 2007 12:54 PM by Christopher Painter