Visual Studio Setup

Installation and containerization of the Visual Studio family of products

June 2006 - Visual Studio Setup

Blank Dialogs for .NET Framework 2.0 Patches

June 29, 2006 Jun 29, 2006 06/29/06
Heath Stewart
When you download a patch for .NET Framework 2.0 and double-click to install it, you'll find that the dialog is missing some text as in the example below. This is due, in part, to a bug in Windows Installer when the ProductLanguage property is 0 in the Property table. Windows Installer contains localized string tables for some basic ...

Biggest Donation in History

June 26, 2006 Jun 26, 2006 06/26/06
Heath Stewart
I normally try to refrain from posting content not related to the topics covered by this blog, but this news is too wonderful to pass up.Warren Buffett - second richest person in the world after Bill Gates - is giving roughly 83% of his stock in Berkshire, which is currently about $31 billion, to the Bill and Melinda Gates ...

Windows Installer SDK Tools and UAC Prompts

June 23, 2006 Jun 23, 2006 06/23/06
Heath Stewart
When using the tools from the Windows Installer SDK you might see the following dialog on Windows Vista. Windows Installer tools like msidb.exe shown here, msicert.exe, msifiler.exe, msiinfo.exe, msimerg.exe, msimsp.exe, msistuff.exe, msitran.exe, and wilogutl.exe use Windows Installer file functions. Msizap.exe is the only tool that may ...

Find the Product

June 21, 2006 Jun 21, 2006 06/21/06
Heath Stewart
The Windows SDK Team instructs users how to uninstall older Platform SDK installations without the original source installation media. As part of their instructions, they write, RemoveProgram FilesMicrosoft SDK folder This is the painful part: Find all .msi that are releated to the February 2003 release in %windir%installer from the cmd ...

Cumulative Service Packs with MinorUpdateTargetRTM

June 14, 2006 Jun 14, 2006 06/14/06
Heath Stewart
Microsoft has had a long-standing policy of providing cumulative service packs - service packs that can be installed for a product whether a previous service pack for that product has been installed or not. Prior to the release of Windows Installer 3.1, minor upgrades which typically serve as service packs had to contain a pair of transforms...

Be Careful or Even Avoid Using Type 35 Custom Actions

June 14, 2006 Jun 14, 2006 06/14/06
Heath Stewart
My blog was pretty quiet for a while because of a problem we ran into regarding Windows Installer type 35 custom actions. These custom actions change the target location for a directory.Developer Division uses type 35 custom actions for vertical integration with other editions of our Visual Studio products, so that installing products with ...

Always use Unique Package Codes

June 13, 2006 Jun 13, 2006 06/13/06
Heath Stewart
It's well documented and understood that package codes should be unique for product and patch packages. The package code, also referred to as a patch code for .msp files, is a unique identifier for that package. For patches, the patch code may also be used for obsolescence, where patch codes for patches to be obsolesced are entered into the ...

Run ICE Validation and Fix Errors

June 8, 2006 Jun 8, 2006 06/8/06
Heath Stewart
Windows Installer is a powerful yet complex technology. There are a lot of rules that have to be followed to be able to successfully install, maintain, and uninstall your product and to retain the functionality and tidy clean-up capabilities of Windows Installer. To this end, Internal Consistency Evaluators (ICEs) exist to aid in validating ...