InstallSite Blog : MSI 4.5

Sample package from DesktopEngineer.com helps you becoming familiar with new MSI 4 and MSI 5 features

stefan — Fri, 15 May 2009 05:50:33 GMT

Darwin Sanoy of DesktopEngineer.com has published a MSI sample package with a step-by-step self learning guide that leads you through testing new features in Windows Installer versions 4 and 5. Topics covered include:

signed and unsigned UAC prompts, signing MSI packages
elevation scenarios and custom actions permissions
per-user installations
full msi file caching
and more

Download: Test Package and 30 Page Lab Manual for Testing MSI 4.0 (Vista) and MSI 5.0 (Win7) Features

Preparing for MVP Summit – Your Questions for the MSI Team?

stefan — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:43:00 GMT

It’s MVP Summit time again! Next week I’ll be travelling to Seattle and Redmond to attend the MVP Global Summit, an event where Microsoft invites MVPs from around the world to hear about the latest technologies, meet the product teams, network, and also have a little fun :)

For me this means that I’ll have the opportunity to sit down with the Windows Installer team (including their documentation writer) and also folks from the WiX team.

Now I have this idea to not only ask my own questions, but also on behalf of my blog readers. So is there anything you always (or recently) wanted to ask the MSI team or some feedback you want to give them? Please let me know. Either post your question as a comment on the blog or send it to me by e-mail skrueger [at] installsite.org

Of course I can’t promise that your questions will be answered (or in some cases I may not be allowed to publish the answer if it’s under NDA). But it’s worth a try.

Chaining MSI Packages with MSI 4.5 White Paper

stefan — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:19:26 GMT

David Cole, Senior Software Engineer and Install Architect at IBM, has written a white paper called “Using Chained .MSI Packages to Componentize Your Windows Installer Setup”. The white paper is available from Acresso Software, the makers of InstallShield, but most of the content is independent of the tool used to create the setup.

David doesn’t simply reiterate the documentation from Microsoft or Acresso regarding the chaining features that were introduced with Windows Installer 4.5. Instead he collected information about best practices, pitfalls and limitations from sources such as blogs, web sites, community discussions etc. The result is a very useful document that anyone who considers building chained MSI packages should read.

Download the white paper from Acresso (registration required)

WARNING: Anyone who knows your e-mail address can retrieve the information you entered during registration, so be careful what you enter as address, phone number, company revenue, etc.

Buch Inside Windows Installer 4.5 (GERMAN)

stefan — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:33:00 GMT

Inside Windows Installer 4.5 ist das neue Buch von Andreas Kerl.

(This book is only available in German language, therefore I'm writing this review in German)

Andreas Kerl ist als Autor zum Thema Windows Installer bekannt. Neben einigen Artikeln in Fachzeitschriften hat er auch die Bücher "Inside Windows Installer" (erschienen 2003) und "Windows Installer 3.1" (erschienen 2005) verfasst. Das neue Buch “Inside Windows Installer 4.5” ist aber keine Fortschreibung des gleichen Inhalts, sondern die drei Bücher können eigenständig nebeneinander stehen.

Das Buch richtet sich an Software-Entwickler und Systemadministratoren, die bereits Grundkenntnisse zu Windows Installer besitzen, denn selbst die Einführungskapitel gehen schnell in die Tiefe und geben Einblicke “unter die Haube” der Windows Installer Technologie.

Daneben enthält das Buch auch eine Einführung in das Open Source Tool WiX (Windows Installer XML), ein Werkzeug zum Erstellen von Installationspaketen, das Microsoft auch intern einsetzt, sowie in die Deployment Tools Foundation (DTF), eine Erweiterungsbibliothek für Windows Installer, die ebenfalls aus dem Hause Microsoft stammt. Die Installations-Beispiele im Buch sind alle in WiX geschrieben. Andere (kommerzielle) Tools zum Erstellen von Installationsprogrammen werden nicht behandelt.

Das Buch erklärt die Funktionsweise von Windows Installer und wie er mit anderen Teilen des Betriebssystems zusammenarbeitet. Um nur ein paar Beispiele zu nennen:

Im Kapitel über die Benutzerkontensteuerung (UAC) wird auch die Intention dieser Neuerung in Windows Vista beleuchtet und was dabei hinter den Kulissen des Berechtigungssystems vor sich geht.

Im Kapitel über den Restart Manager erfährt man auch, wie ein Systemstart abläuft und welche Registry-Einträge in welcher Reihenfolge für Autostart-Aktionen ausgewertet werden.

Ein ausführliches Kapitel behandelt externe Benutzeroberflächen, ein Thema, das allein mit der Dokumentation von Microsoft kaum zu bewältigen ist. Der Quelltext steht – wie für alle Beispiele im Buch – als Download zur Verfügung.

Auf diese Weise vermittelt das Buch ein fundiertes Verständnis von Windows Installer im Zusammenhang mit anderen Teilen des Betriebssystems.

Inside Windows Installer 4.5 bei amazon.de

Hotfix for MSI 4.5

stefan — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:29:40 GMT

Microsoft release a hotfix for MSI 4.5. It addressed a problem where installing multiple msi packages in a row could result in error message "API call rejected - No actions in Context". It's caused by the Windows Installer engine starting the next setup while the previous one is still in the last finishing step. This issue is most likely to be encountered during the installation of SQL Server 2008. So in many cases you won't need to install the hotfix.

The hotfix requires MSI 4.0 or 4.5 to exist on the target machine. This means that you can install it on Windows Vista and Server 2008, even if the target machine hasn't been updated from MSI 4.0 to 4.5 before. On Windows XP and Server 2003 however you need to install the base version of MSI 4.5 before you can apply the hotfix.

The MSI version matrix on InstallSite (English / German) has been updated.

Hotfix download

Service Pack 1 for InstallShield 2009 available [Update]

stefan — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 08:52:00 GMT

Only two weeks after the inital release of InstallShield 2009 Acresso published a service pack. The main purpose of SP1 is to add support for the release version of Windows Installer 4.5. The inital release only supported MSI 4.5 Beta 2.

SP1 also fixes some issues that had been reported shortly after the initial release.

~~SP1 for InstallShield 2009 Premier and Professional is currently available only in English. The German and Japanese versions will be released later.~~
[Update 2008-06-27] SP1 for InstallShield 2009 Premier and Professional is now available in English, German and Japanese. [/Update]

You can obtain SP1 either using InstallShield's update functionality or from the knowledge base article below:

Q200241: InstallShield 2009 Service Pack 1 (download SP1)
Q200150: InstallShield 2009/InstallShield 2009 SP1 Release Notes (lists the issues fixed in SP1)

MSI 4.5 Released

stefan — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:02:45 GMT

[updated 2008-06-04 with additional links]

Today TechEd North America started, and many companies use TechEd to announce new products and releases. So here's the first announcement that caught my attention:

Windows Installer 4.5 has been released

Version 4.5 of the MSI engine brings new features such as

Multi-Package Transactions that enable developers to seamlessly chain multiple Windows Installer packages
Embedded Custom UI, so a setup.exe launcher is no longer required as had been the case with the "external UI" functionality
Patch Uninstall Custom Actions

and several other enhancements.

While MSI 4.0 was only available for (and as part of) Windows Vista, the MSI 4.5 runtime can be redistributed to Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, or above.

More information:

Windows Installer 4.5 is now available! (Windows Installer Team Blog)
What's New in Windows Installer 4.5 (MSDN documentation)
Windows Installer 4.5 SDK
Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributable
Windows Installer 4.5 is available (Microsoft Knowledge Base article 942288)

MSI 4.5 Beta Chat, and change in the MSI team

stefan — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:52:23 GMT

On April 3, 2008 there will be a chat with the MSI team at Microsoft about MSI 4.5 beta. The chat is public (not limited to beta testers) and will start at 10 a.m. PDT, which is equivalent to 17:00 UTC.

additional time zones
add to calendar
enter chat room (requires Windows Live ID)
announcement on the MSI team blog

The msi team also plans to publish MSI 4.5 beta 2 "within the next few weeks". This will be the last beta before RTM.

New/old MSI program manager

There's also a change in leadership of the MSI team. Robert Flaming is leaving the MSI team and moving to Microsoft's Developer Division where he'll work to improve "the logistical hand-offs between developer and user" (which I guess will also include setup & deployment topics).

Tyler Robinson returns as the program manager for Windows Installer, after being away from the MSI team for almost a year.

MSI 4.5 documentation available publicly

stefan — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 07:40:14 GMT

As announced in the Windows Installer Team Blog, the documentation for Windows Installer 4.5 (beta) is now avilable on MSDN, without need for registering on Microsoft Connect and accepting any NDAs.

What's new in Windows Installer 4.5

Information about MSI 4.1 has been pulled from MSDN. It's currently unknown if that means that Microsoft cancelled the plan to ship MSI 4.1 in Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008.

Problems with compiled HTML Help (.chm) files

stefan — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 19:15:41 GMT

When the beta of Windows Installer 4.5 became available, first thing I did was downloading the white papers and the SDK documentation, which comes as compiled HTLM Help file msi.chm. But when I launched the help file it didn't work.

When I double clicked the msi.chm file the usual security dialog was displayed, warning me that files downloaded from the internet can be harmful:

Security warning dialog

After confirming that I wish to open it, the help window opened, but the content pane only displayed error messages like in these screenshots:

Initial error message after opening the help file

Error message after selecting a topic

To see if the problem only affects me I contacted fellow MSI expert Christopher Painter to see if the help file works for him, which it does. Christopher pointed me to the following knowledge base article, but unfortunately this was not the cause for my problem (the msi.chm file was on my local hard disk):

You cannot open remote content by using the InfoTech protocol after you install security update 896358, security update 840315, or Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1

Christopher also suggested that it might be some IE securtity issue. That pointed me in the right direction. I moved the chm file from my NTFS formatted hard disk to a FAT formatted USB memory device, and then back to the hard disk. I did this to remove the information that the file was downloaded from the internet, which Windows stores in an extra stream that can only exist on NTFS.

After this operation the msi.chm file worked! I also reproduced the problem with another .chm file I downloaded from elsewhere, with the same result. So this appears to the a general problem with .chm files.

Later I found another workaround. On the Connect site there also a download manager ActiveX control (called FTM - file transfer manager) which apparently also removes the meta information from the downloaded file. So using FTM instead of directly downloading the msi.chm file also avoids the problem.

Prepare for MSI 4.5

stefan — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:58:00 GMT

The first public beta version of the Windows Installer (MSI) 4.5 runtime, SDK and documentation has just been posted by Microsoft. It's mainly targeted at tools vendors so they can update their authoring and packaging tools to support the new version. But as a setup developer you should also prepare for MSI 4.5, and below are some suggestions how yu can do this. Before you can download the beta files and documentaton, you must register at the Microsoft Connect site, where you can also report bugs and problems - see the Walkthrough for Signing up for Windows Installer 4.5 Beta.

Note: if you are an end user (not developing msi packages) I don't recommend installing MSI 4.5 at this point.

Read the documentation

White papers explaining the goals and changes in MSI 4.5 as well as SDK documentation (msi.chm) are available on the Connect site. Read them to see if MSI 4.5 can help you solving issues you are facing in your install project. But be aware that MSI 4.5 only supports Windows XP SP2,Windows Server 2003 SP1, and higher. Also watch out for the reboot requirements and silent install problems for the MSI 4.5 engine on Windows Vista.

Install and test the beta runtime

First a note fo caution: You should not install the SDK and runtime files on your production or develoment machine! In previous betas this happened to beak the build system. But when testing your msi setup - typically in a virtual machine - you could also use the MSI 4.5 engine. Once MSI 4.5 is released this is a must, because your msi file may be launched on a machine with MSI 4.5 installed, even if you don't redistribute this version with your setup. But it's also useful to test the beta version of the MSI 4.5 engine and report any issues to Microsoft (via the Connect site) so they may be fixed in the release version.

Add flags to your pre-4.5 packages

Windows Installer ignores tables, columns, flags and properties it doesn't know. Therefore MSI 4 packages today work with the MSI 2.x or 3.x runtime - of course without the new functionality. Similarly you can add flags that are new in MSI 4.5 ahead of time, to leverage the new functionality once MSI 4.5 is released. While in many cases this may not make much sense, there's one flag that I think should be set by default in all new msi setups: the msidbComponentAttributesShared attribute in the Component table. It prevents the downgrade of files that are shared across products. Without this flag, uninstalling a patch could downgrade such a file, thus breaking the other product. Read more about Shared Components Robustness in Heath Stewart's blog.

Note that adding not-yet-supported flags to your msi file will result in validation errors, so you should not do this if you plan to submit your product for logo certification before the release of MSI 4.5.

News about Windows Installer 4.1 and 4.5

stefan — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 07:36:00 GMT

Microsoft is working on two new versions of Windows Installer (MSI):

Windows Installer 4.1

MSI 4.1 will be available in Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. According to the Windows Installer SDK this version will not add any new features. Windows Server 2008 is currently in beta and expected to be released later this year.

Windows Installer 4.5

One of the goals in Windows Installer 4.5 is to improve installs that consist of multiple msi packages, thus enabling products to be split into more granular msi files. For this purpose it adds APIs that a chainer can call to install products in a multi-package transaction. So there will be Install and Rollback transactions across multiple msi files. In my understanding, the chainer itself will not be part of MSI 4.5 Instead Microsoft asked MSI tools vendors to support these new features in their products.

MSI 4.5 will also address servicing issues where uninstalling a patch could break if a component is shared across multiple products.

The MSI 4.5 redistributables will be available for Windows XP SP2 and above and will include the operating system independent features and fixes from MSI 4.0 which is only available on Windows Vista.

Beta registration for MSI 4.5 opened today, you can apply at the Microsoft Connect site, where Microsoft manages beta programs. The beta documentation should be posted there in July and the binaries in August. For mor information see the Windows Installer Team Blog. (~~Note that the white paper mentioned there is not yet available~~. Edit: the download link for the white paper is now working properly.)