InstallSite Blog : Windows 7

AdminStudio 9.5 will improve support for Windows 7 and App-V, but won't include a 64 bit Repackager

stefan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:23:09 GMT

Today at the Microsoft TechEd Europe conference in Berlin, Flexera Software announced a new version of their packaging and virtualization tool. AdminStudio 9.5 is scheduled to be released on November 23, 2009.

The AdminStudio Repackager has been improved to support Windows 7 requirements, including enhanced exclusion lists. AdminStudio 9.5 also includes InstallShield 2010 to edit MSI files.

AdminStudio 9.5 will also support the latest releases of the leading application virtualization products: Microsoft App-V 4.6 and VMware ThinApp 4.0.3.

Unfortunately, AdminStudio 9.5 will not include support for repackaging 64 bit applications, but Flexera Software told me that this is high on their priority list. If you’re interested in beta-testing this functionality, please contact me (skrueger -at- installsite -dot- org) and I will forward you e-mail to Flexera Software.

Press release

You can buy AdminStudio in the InstallSite Shop.

Service Pack 1 for InstallShield 2010 brings support for the final released versions of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

stefan — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:17:02 GMT

When InstallShield 2010 was released, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 were still in the Release Candidate (RC) state. Acresso now published Service Pack 1 to support the release versions (RTM) of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, and the included MSI 5 engine. SP1 also includes some enhancements for Windows Mobile installations and for Microsoft's App-V application virtualization.

Caveat: SP1 adds additional tables to the project file. When you open a project file in InstallShield 2010 SP1 it will be converted to the new format. Thereafter it can no longer be opened in InstallShield 2010 without SP1. So if you are working in a team, make sure that all users install SP1 simultaneously.

The stand-alone build engine has also been updated and can be downloaded as a full install package (not a patch).

Enhancements in SP1 related to Windows Installer 5 and Windows 7/Server 2008 R2 include:

Improved manifest for setup.exe to avoid triggering the program compatibility assistant on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
New options for Windows Services
Setting shell properties for shortcuts
Windows 7 Logo validation

Enhanced support for Microsoft App-V (requires Virtualization Pack):

Create App-V package upgrades
Compress App-V packages

Enhancements related to Windows Mobile 6.5:

Specify a 90x90 .png shortcut Icon for the Start Screen on Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional, which is a requirement for the Windows Marketplace for Mobile

SP1 also includes a number of bug fixes.

For detailed information see the release notes:

To download SP1 select Check for Updates from the Tools menu in InstallShield. See also knowledge base article Q206429

Windows 7 with IE and Ballot Screen in Europe

stefan — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:46:24 GMT

Microsoft will ship the full Windows 7 with Internet Explorer in Europe, instead of the previously proposed “Windows 7 E” version without any browser.

In June, Microsoft had announced that they would remove Internet Explorer from Windows 7 in order to “comply with European competition law” as they said. As a side effect, users in the EU would not have been able to do an in-place upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. This decision caused protest from columnists, consumers and also from the European Union.

As a result, Microsoft dropped their plans for the “E” version and will instead ship the full Windows 7 in Europe. However users (only in Europe) will be presented with a “ballot screen” where they can select an alternative browser instead of Internet Explorer. You can read more about this (including a screenshot of the ballot screen) in Microsoft’s legal and policy blog.

It’s good to see they found a consumer friendly solution, although I find it strange that Microsoft is required to advertise their competitors’ products.

I wonder if other companies will now follow Microsoft and also offer ballot screens. For instance Adobe, who always offer Google Toolbar to me, whenever I download Adobe Reader or Flash player, should give me a choice of other browser toolbars. Or – maybe better not. I’d prefer Adobe, Apple, Sun and everyone would get rid of these toolbars they bundle with their software.

The effect of MSIFASTINSTALL

stefan — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:35:04 GMT

In MSI 5 there’s a new property MSIFASTINSTALL that can be set on the command line or in the Property table to speed up large install packages. It’s a combination of flags that will avoid creation of a system restore point, skip some costing tasks, reduce the frequency of progress messages, or any combination of these.

Alex Verboon has run some performance tests to see how much installation time is reduced by setting the MSIFASTINSTALL property. He doesn’t explicitly specify which build of Windows 7 he used for his test, but it probably was the RC build (since the beta version has expired and the RTM is not available yet).

Alex Verboon’s blog article:
Reduce software installation time

New Advanced Installer 7.1 brings Windows 7 and WI 5 compatibility and support

stefan — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:02:39 GMT

On July 8th, 2009 Caphyon Ltd. announced the latest edition of its Windows Installer authoring tool. The new Advanced Installer enables developers and system administrators to easily build and repackage complex applications into reliable, ready to deploy MSI and EXE installers, patches and on-line updates.

The 7.1 release completes our Windows 7 and Windows Installer 5.0 compatibility and support. From new features readily available to your installers to better usability and OS integration, Advanced Installer makes checking for and using the new Microsoft platform a snap.

Multiple user interface improvements are available in this version, both in installers using the Enhanced UI feature and in Advanced Installer itself where a new set of cleaner, modernized and better suited for the Vista/Windows 7 operation systems icons debuts.

New predefined ready-to-use prerequisites, launch conditions, searches and ten new custom ways of searching on the user's computer ensure that your application's install never fails due to problems in third-party frameworks, components or products.

Other improvements in this version:

Single Package Authoring for WI 5.0
Enhanced Service Configuration for WI 5.0
Ability to generate Unicode MSI Databases
File associations in Windows Mobile projects
New configuration content report for Windows Mobile projects
Display progress information on Windows 7 Taskbar for: Auto Updater, Repackager, package build, Enhanced UI installation and EXE bootstrapper installation
Added Checklist control in Enhanced UI
Added Hyperlink control in Enhanced UI and Windows Installer 5.0 UI
Multiple selection ListBox and ListView controls in Enhanced UI
ASP.NET registration for an IIS web application
Logging support for chained packages
Extended search support with 10 additional methods
Predefined searches for RegAsm, Regsvr32, Aspnet_regiis and Microsoft Office installation path
Microsoft Silverlight predefined prerequisite
DirectX 11 predefined launch condition
Windows 7 predefined launch condition
Refreshed Advanced Installer icon set

Advanced Installer is available in four editions, starting with the Freeware community edition and offering a 30-day trial period for the other editions.

For more information and ordering Advanced Installer please see:
www.installsite.biz/advancedinstaller.htm

(Text based on a press release from Caphyon Ltd.)

What Developers should know about Windows 7 without Internet Explorer

stefan — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:12:28 GMT

As you've probably read before, in Europe Windows 7 will ship without Internet Explorer. This edition will be called "Windows 7 E" and Internet Explorer will not be included for legal reasons. Users will be able to install IE themselves, but it will not be installed by default. For the same reason, users in Europe won't be able to perform an in-place update from Windows Vista to Windows 7. Instead they need to do a clean install, essentially removing IE from their system.

This means that your application may run on a Windows system without any default web browser. This could cause problems if you try to open a web page from your application or from your setup program.

Note that the underlying "internet web platform component" is present even on Windows 7 E, so things like HTML help and embedded WebBrowser controls will work, but opening a web browser window will not.

The Windows Team has published some developer FAQs around Windows 7 E in their blog:
Windows 7 E Best Practices for ISVs

MSI Compatibility: Lying about VersionNT and ServicePackLevel

stefan — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:39:33 GMT

MSI 5 on Windows 7 introduces a new application compatibility setting, as Chris Jackson describes in his blog.

To work around too strict OS version checks in LaunchConditions, Windows Installer can automatically try several variations of values for the VersionNT and ServicePackLevel properties to circumvent the condition. For instance it will start with VersionNT=600 (Windows Vista) and ServicePackLevel=14, then count down the SP level (13, 12, …, 0), then repeat the same with VersionNT=502 (Windows Server 2003) and so on, until the LaunchCondition succeeds. This is a per-msi setting on the local machine, which can be turned on using this dialog:

According to the blog, Windows Installer also sets these properties which might be useful to detect that version lying is going on:

SHIMFLAGS
SHIMVERSIONNT
SHIMSERVICEPACKLEVEL

As far as I know these properties are currently not documented in MSDN.

Original article:
Unraveling the Mysteries of MSI Compatibility Modes in Windows 7

False Positives in Windows 7's Installer Detection

stefan — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:18:00 GMT

When User Account Control (UAC ) was introduced in Windows Vista it would have caused problems for many existing setups because they required full administrator permissions. Therefore Microsoft added heuristical detection for installers. For instance if it detects a keyword like “setup” or “installer” in the exe file name or in the resources it assumes that this is a setup program and displays the UAC prompt to elevate the program to the full administrator token. This can however cause problems if your program actually isn’t a setup but is falsely identified as one by the installer heuristic (“false positive”). To avoid this you could add a manifest to your application to tell Windows Vista that it’s not a setup.

Windows 7 has similar functionality, but it ignores the information you put in the manifest for Windows Vista – you have to add another piece of data especially for Windows 7. Chris Jackson, who is an Architect and the Technical Lead for the Windows Application Experience SWAT Team, blogged about this problem, and a possible fix.

PCA Changes for Windows 7: How To Tell Us You are Not an Installer, Take 2 (because we changed the rules on you)

InstallShield 2010 Released

stefan — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:55:14 GMT

(Updated to fix broken hyperlinks)

On October 18, 2009 Acresso released the latest version of their setup authoring tool InstallShield, which reportedly is used by over 71,000 ISVs and enterprises to create installers for Windows and mobile devices.

What's new in InstallShield 2010

Supports Microsoft App-V with new InstallShield Virtualization Pack - in addition to Windows Installer (MSI) and proprietary InstallScripts, developers can now create virtual application packages for Microsoft App-V (formerly Softgrid)
New Microsoft technologies supported natively in InstallShield – InstallShield 2010 supports Windows 7 and MSI 5 features so developers can use them now on Windows XP and Vista platforms. It also has support for Windows Server 2008 R2.
Improved support for Web applications – Expanded IIS features now include all IIS 7 settings.
IDE usability improvements – New flattened architecture and dynamic and global searching significantly increase developer productivity. Developers can spend 10 minutes to learn the new IDE and then benefit from significant time saved on daily tasks.
More options for runtime user-experience customization – ISVs have more customization options to create user experience and branding with new support for billboards, Flash, HTML, and hyperlinks. New branding options can help ISVs up/cross-sell their software by adding more user interaction through the installation process.
Better support for multi-language installation – InstallShield now supports Unicode. Also developers will save significant time by having a single view of all languages with dynamic searching and replacing global settings at once.
plus over 400 new and enhanced features from customer requests

Detailed information can be found in the datasheet and in the release notes:

If you’re in Europe you can buy InstallShield 2010 from the InstallSite Shop.

Changes in Activation Process and EULA

Changes in the End User License Agreement (EULA) and in the activation process include:

Licenses can now be “de-activated” manually, even offline.
Activation needs to be repeated on a yearly basis.
Using InstallShield in a virtual machine is now allowed.

I have created a side-by-side comparison of the old and the new EULA and a summary of the changes in the activation process. For full details please read Acresso’s official documents:

InstallShield 2010 EULA (PDF)
InstallShield Activation User Guide (PDF)

End of Life announced for InstallShield 12 and InstallAnywhere 8

Together with the release of InstallShield 2010 Acresso also announced the end of life for InstallShield 12 and InstallAnywhere 8 (all language editions). This means that you can upgrade from these versions only until October 30, 2009. After that date you would have to pay the full license price.

October 31, 2009 is the deadline for the following product versions:

InstallShield 12 (all languages)
InstallShield 2008 German
InstallShield 2009 German
InstallAnywhere 8 (all languages)
InstallAnywhere 2008 (German and French)
InstallAnywhere 2009 (German and French)

The end of life for the localized German versions of InstallShield and the German and French versions of InstallAnywhere had already been announced two weeks ago.
The English versions of InstallShield 2008 and higher and InstallAnywhere 2008 and higher are not affected by this announcement.

More information about these end of life announcements can be found in the InstallSite Shop and the Acresso Website.

Why UAC isn’t a security boundary, and how auto-elevation works on Windows 7

stefan — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:44:10 GMT

Mark Russinovich (of SysInternals fame and now employed as a Technical Fellow at Microsoft) has published an interesting article about User Account Control (UAC) in the July issue of TechNet Magazine.

He discusses the goal of UAC, why it could be circumvented by malware, and how auto-elevation on Windows 7 avoids elevation prompts from system tasks.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.07.uac.aspx

Windows 7 disguises as Vista to MSI Custom Actions

stefan — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:46:57 GMT

In every new version of Windows, Microsoft includes numerous “shims” to improve compatibility with existing software. These shims are applied on a per-application basis. You can see which shims apply to an application using the Compatibility Administrator which is part of the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) – Download ACT version 5.5

The below screenshot shows the application compatibility settings for msiexec.exe, the process that runs all Windows Installer (MSI) setups.

As you can see among the shims that apply to Windows Installer there is VistaRTMVersionLie. This setting causes the GetVersionEx API to return Windows Vista values on Windows 7,when called from a custom action in a MSI setup.

Note that this only applies when a custom action checks for the Windows version using the GetVersionEx API. However the pre-defined MSI property VersionNT will properly be set to 601 on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 as documented. (Remember that that the VersionNT value is not 700 as one might expect, which is another application compatibility measure to work around setups that check the major OS version number.)

For information about the other shims that apply to MSI setups and a discussion about the “OS version lying” see Chris Jackson’s blog where he states that “there’s an arms race between app compat and the people who want to do the checks”.

Windows 7 Beta Testers – don’t miss the Live Meeting and Chat on MSI 5

stefan — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:06:30 GMT

Next week’s feature focus in the Windows 7 beta test will be on Windows Installer (and on Devices and Printers). As part of that, there’ll be a Live Meeting on Monday, March 2, and a chat on Thursday, March 5. These events are open to registered beta testers of Windows 7 and can be accessed from the calendar on Microsoft Connect.

In addition, there are a number of MSI related test tasks on Microsoft’s Scenario Feedback site.

Windows 7 Logo Requirements

stefan — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:45:28 GMT

Microsoft has published a preview of the “Technical Requirements for the Windows 7 Software Logo Program for Client Operating Systems”. The list of requirements is significantly shorter than in previous versions of Windows. The use of Windows Installer (MSI) or ClickOnce is no longer listed as an explicit requirement.

Software developers can now self-test their application for compatibility, external test centers are no longer involved in the process. Instead they have to give a copy (and license) of their application to Microsoft for testing purposes.

Microsoft will hold the ISVs responsible for their products: ISVs must to agree to a 30-90 day resolution policy for all issues identified in market with logo’d products.

Beta Test MSI 5 in Windows 7

stefan — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:51:47 GMT

Windows Installer 5 is included in the Windows 7 Beta. In addition to bug reporting Microsoft asks for “Scenario Feedback”. Microsoft describes more than 250 usage scenarios that you can try and report your satisfaction and whether you think this feature is ready for RTM. Seven of these scenarios are about Windows Installer, like installing large MSI packages, installing applications per-user, or configuring services.

I’d highly encourage every setup developer to get the beta and run your setup on it. Now is the time to report any problems to Microsoft, so they can fix them or add workarounds (it’s common practice for Microsoft to add shims for specific applications) or to identify areas where your setup needs to be adjusted.

A number of installer related issues have already been identified - not bugs in MSI itself but incompatibilities – which are causing problems like missing or wrong icons or even crash the installer engine.

You may also have to adjust some functionality of your setup. For instance, the Quick Launch Bar is gone (it’s deprecated and hidden by default).

MSDN and TechNet subscribers have unlimited access to the Windows 7 Beta. Everyone else can download it through February 9th. The beta is available in five languages.

MSI 5.0 Beta SDK and Documentation available

stefan — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:20:31 GMT

Beta documentation for the latest version of Windows Installer is now available for online reading. The online documentation for MSI 5.0 was built on January 15, 2009.

The Windows 7 SDK has been published about a week earlier. It includes an older version of the documentation, built on November 21, 2008, and new versions of tools like Orca.

Windows Installer 5 Documentation

The online documentation on MSDN is a convenient way to see what’s new in MSI 5.0 without having to download and install the SDK (see below).

(Note: Some MSDN pages don’t render properly for me today. Not sure what’s causing this.)

Some notable news in MSI 5:

Version Numbers

As expected, VersionMsi is now “5.00”. Maybe a bit suprising, VersionNT for Windows 7 is ”601”. That’s because Windows 7 internally is version number 6.1. Microsoft did this to avoid compatibility problems with setups or applications that check the major version number of Windows and might refuse to run if it’s larger than 6.

User Interface

A new Hyperlink control can be placed on dialogs. It will open the default browser and only supports HTML. When such a setup is run on an older version of the MSI runtime, the Hyperlink control is not displayed at all.

New control events MsiPrint to print the content of a ScrollableText control (typically used to display a license agreement) and MsiLaunchApp to start a program that has been installed by the package. The latter references the File table, so it can’t be used to start a program that’s not included in the setup.

Service Configuration

There’s a new standard action called MsiConfigureServices and two related tables MsiServiceConfig and MsiServiceConfigFailureActions. I haven’t figured out yet how they work together with the other service related tables and actions.

Per-User Installations

Setting the new MSIINSTALLPERUSER will automatically redirect files and registry entries to per-user locations, as described in a previous post. For example, ProgramFilesFolder is automatically set to %localappdata%\programs if you do a per-user install.

Configuring Permissions

The MsiLockPermissionsEx table is a replacement for the LockPermissions table. According to the documentation a package should not contain both tables. If this won’t be changed in the RTM version it will limit your ability to create msi packages that will also work with previous versions of the MSI runtime. Instead of Domain, User and Permission it uses security descriptor definition language (SDDL) to indicate permissions to apply to the selected object. A new column data type FormattedSDDLText has been added for this purpose. The MsiLockPermissionsEx also has a Condition column to decide whether to apply the specified permission.

Speeding up large install packages

The new MSIFASTINSTALL property can be set on the command line or in the Property table to avoid creation of a system restore point, skip some costing tasks, reduce the frequency of progress messages, or any combination of these.

Setting Shortcut Properties

According to the documentation, the MsiShortcutProperty table enables Window Installer to set properties for shortcuts that are also Windows Shell objects. (I have no idea what that means.)

Windows Installer API

There are three new installer functions: MsiEnumComponentsEx, MsiEnumClientsEx and MsiGetComponentPathEx.

ICE Validation and Automation Interface

Finally there are five new Internal Consistency Evaluators (ICEs) and some additions to the automation interface which you can find in the documentation.

Windows Installer 5 SDK

The SDK for MSI 5.0 is part of the Windows 7 SDK. It’s currently only available in form of a 1.3 GB .iso file download. You either have to burn this .iso to a DVD or mount it as a drive in Virtual PC or using some other tool. Then you can install the SDK from that drive.

Among other tools the SDK includes the Orca MSI table editor version 5.0.6764.0

Download the SDK .iso file:
Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1: BETA

UAC in Windows 7

stefan — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:49:28 GMT

At PDC2008 there was a session abstract that essentially said: "there's nothing new here". But I'd still recommend viewing it, and actually it included (a little bit of) new information:

PC51 Windows 7: Best Practices for Developing for Windows Standard User
presented by Crispin Cowan, PM on the UAC team

The important takeaway is that from a programmer's perspective the UAC functionality in Windows 7 is the same as in Windows Vista. There is some fine tuning so that some actions don't require elevation anymore, like changing the DPI of your monitor. A major change is that the UAC prompt behaviour is now configurable by the user (more details below), but programs should still be created for and tested with the tightest UAC setting.

The presenter explains what problems user context switching in an "over-the-shoulder" elevation scenario can cause, how to launch an elevated process from a non-elevated process, and other design guidelines with restricted users in mind. He also explains why launching an application or readme at the end of an elevated setup can be a problem, and that per-user configuration should not be handled by the installer but by the application at first run. Finally he expresses his concerns about per-user installs.

UAC Configuration Options

Here are some screenshots from the UAC configuration dialog in Windows 7 (taken from the M3 build that was handed out to PDC attendees).

In the highest setting the UAC behavior is the same as in Windows Vista.

The second option is similar to the first one, but the UAC prompt is displayed like any other window, not on the secure desktop. According to Crispin this mode is intended for machines with problematic video drivers which cause the screen to turn black for as long as 30 seconds when switching to the secure desktop. This mode is less secure because a malicious program could remote-control the UAC prompt. It can be handy however if you want to take a screenshot of the UAC dialog.

The third option is the default (at least in this build). It gets the UAC prompt out of the way for any tasks you perform manually. So for instance a user can create a folder under Program Files without being prompted. I don't know how Windows 7 can safely distinguish between user actions and programmatic actions, and what would happen if a tool like AutoIt sent keystrokes or mouse clicks to an application.

The last option turns UAC off completely. This requires a reboot of the machine, and instantly changes your security status to red, similar to Windows Vista.

I noticed that the shield icon on buttons performing actions that require elevation is always displayed, even if the UAC prompt is set to option 3. This means that you don't actually get a UAC prompt when you click a button with a shield on it. I find that confusing.

Finally, now that taking screenshots from UAC dialogs is easier, here's the "friendly" UAC dialog that's displayed when uninstalling a digitally signed package from the Programs and Features control panel (aka ARP), which I mentioned in my previous PDC post.

Note: The screenshots in this article were taken from a pre-beta build of Windows 7, so things may look and/or behave differently in the beta or RTM.

PDC2008: Windows Installer and ClickOnce in Windows 7

stefan — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:13:10 GMT

This week Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC2008) took place in Los Angeles. Several new and improved products and technologies were introduced there, like Windows 7, Windows Azure (Microsoft's "cloud" operating system) and Visual Studio 2010. I wasn't there but while I'm watching the session recordings I'll blog about PDC news that I think are interesting for setup developers and application deployment.

My first PDC2008 blog post is about Windows Installer and ClickOnce in Windows 7. Tyler Robinson, Lead Program Manager in the Application Deployment team, gave one session at PDC2008, and it's available as a recording on Channel 9:

Windows 7: Deploying Your Application with Windows Installer (MSI) and ClickOnce

Here are some bits from this session...

Windows Installer 4.5

The first 25 minutes of the 85 minutes session, Tyler actually talks about MSI 4.5, which is the latest released version of Windows Installer. He explains the intention behind the changes in MSI 4.5 and mentions how they can be combined to create smarter setups, illustrated with some demos.

Tyler also mentions that MSI 4.5 will be included in the next service packs for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, as opposed to Vista RTM, Vista SP1 and Server 2008 RTM which come with MSI 4.0.

ClickOnce, .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and the new Client Profile Configuration Designer

From 0:24:50 to 0:38:20 Tyler talks about the ClickOnce functionality and improvements in the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, technologies that are already available today. He also covers the .NET Client Profile which should streamline redistribution of the .NET Framework, not only for ClickOnce but also Windows Installer or other setup technologies (but he doesn't discuss the limitations of Client Profile).

At 0:31:15 Tyler introduces the Client Profile Configuration Designer which has just been made available as beta. It's essentially a tool that can chain multiple packages such as the .NET Framework and other prerequisites, as well as ClickOnce packages, MSI based setups or even scripts. It provides a seamless and customizable user interface with one progress bar across all the packages, and can either defer reboots requests until the end, or handle reboots between packages gracefully. Optionally it can also create a combined uninstall experience instead of separate entries in the Add/Remove Programs control panel. The Client Profile Configuration Designer can be downloaded from windowsclient.net/wpf/ in the Deployment section.

MSI 5 in Windows 7, and a first look at InstallShield 2010

0:41:15 is the starting point for the second part of Tyler's session where he covers new, pre-release products. Windows 7 will include MSI 5.0 which he promises will bring up to 20% faster installation times and improved reliability.

Uninstalling a digitally signed package from the Add/Remove Programs control panel will now show the appropriate UAC dialog with the gray banner and your product name instead of the "scary" version with the yellow banner and the warning about an "unknown program" that wants to modify your computer.

The Lock Permissions and Service Configuration standard actions have been improved. Tyler mentions inheritance in the LockPermissions table but doesn't go into more details, and I've haven't had the time yet to download the new SDK documentation.

You can now add hyperlink controls on dialogs and there's built-in print functionality for the EULA dialog.

To make systems administrators' lives easier the MSI team has added functionality to perform limited Windows Installer operations on "offline" disk images in WIM format. This enables administrators to inventory the applications in the image and perform patch applicability checks without having to boot into the image.

MSI 5 will improve support for per-user applications, allowing you to create a single msi package that can be installed per-machine or per-user, and only displays the elevation prompt if per-machine is selected. This includes automatic redirection of files and registry entries to per-user locations, which are now documented in the official guidelines. For example, ProgramFilesFolder is automatically set to %localappdata%\programs if you do a per-user install. Of course, a per-user installation can't do any machine-wide modifications like installing services or GAC assemblies. In his demo at 1:04:10 Tyler uses an alpha-release of InstallShield 2010 which he expects to go into beta early next year.

There was no information if or when MSI 5.0 will be made available as a redistributable for older versions of Windows.

Q&A

Finally, starting at 1:10:25, Tyler spends 15 minutes answering questions from the audience, or in some cases deferring the reply to the Windows Installer Team Blog.

This concludes my first PDC2008 post. I plan to write more in the next days.