Visual Studio Setup

Installation and containerization of the Visual Studio family of products

2008 - Page 3 of 4 - Visual Studio Setup

MSIZap is not Uninstall

April 22, 2008 Apr 22, 2008 04/22/08
Heath Stewart
The tool msizap.exe that is available in the Windows SDK and elsewhere on the web (remember to always download from a trusted source) is a powerful but dangerous tool that is often used to quickly and casually, and can leave your machine in a corrupted state if not used correctly. The same is true for the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility ...

Functional Testing of Cmdlets

April 7, 2008 Apr 7, 2008 04/7/08
Heath Stewart
While developing unit and functional tests for Windows Installer PowerShell Extensions, I needed a way to invoke cmdlets without requiring elevation on Vista. That is, of course, because running elevated has always been a bad idea unless it is required. In order to load a PowerShell snap-in, however, one must write to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE which ...

Windows Installer 4.5 Beta 2 Available

April 1, 2008 Apr 1, 2008 04/1/08
Heath Stewart
The Windows Installer team released Windows Installer 4.5 Beta 2 recently. While not a lot has visibly changed since the first beta for which I provided an overview, it's important to note that a new column was added to the CustomAction table since changes to column types are not supported in a transform or patch but adding a new column is ...

Group by Different Properties for Format-Table

March 15, 2008 Mar 15, 2008 03/15/08
Heath Stewart
For my Windows Installer PowerShell Extensions, I've been simplifying some of the use cases and adding additional formats. One thing I wanted to do was display source list information in a table and group either by the attached ProductCode or PatchCode properties. The format-table cmdlet doesn't support multiple properties and doesn't appear ...

Another Workaround to Add New Components to Existing Features

February 19, 2008 Feb 19, 2008 02/19/08
Heath Stewart
Yesterday I described an issue when adding new components to existing, not-installed (absent) features the feature tree is installed. This can lead to prompts for source or failed installations. One workaround is to add new, top-level hidden features. This works well unless new resources have a dependency on the older resources installed by ...

Adding New Components to Existing Features Installs the Feature Tree

February 18, 2008 Feb 18, 2008 02/18/08
Heath Stewart
As Developer Division starts to ship patches for the Visual Studio 2008, some users are being prompted for installation source media. This is a resulting of Windows Installer needing the original source files if, for example, files are missing from disk when you repair your product or backup files are not available during patch install. If you...

Debugging Custom Actions: Leaked Handles

February 12, 2008 Feb 12, 2008 02/12/08
Heath Stewart
Debugging custom actions isn't exactly the easiest action to do; Windows Installer spawns separate processes - remoting servers - to run in-process custom actions. Any opportunity to diagnose issues without debugging can be helpful.For example, an issue that comes up from time to time is leaked handles. A Windows Installer debug log might show...