Visual Studio Setup

Installation and containerization of the Visual Studio family of products

64-bit Archives - Visual Studio Setup

Windows Installer PowerShell Module 2.2.1 Released

July 3, 2013 Jul 3, 2013 07/3/13
Heath Stewart
Yesterday I released servicing update 2.2.1, which updates 2.2.0 to fix a few bugs and add a few cool new features: Version-specific documentation has been added, but the most significant change to the documentation is the complete overhaul of the examples. Apart from removing some old examples using deprecated functionality, I ...

WoW64 is optional in Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core

November 6, 2009 Nov 6, 2009 11/6/09
Heath Stewart
Installation bootstrap applications are increasingly common as products chain dependencies like the Microsoft .NET Framework. Because 64-bit Windows supports both 32- and 64-bit execution, but 64-bit executables on 32-bit Windows give what some users might consider cryptic error messages, installation developers often ship a 32-bit bootstrap ...

Installation sequence restrictions for multi-package transactions

July 3, 2009 Jul 3, 2009 07/3/09
Heath Stewart
Windows Installer 4.5 introduced a feature to install multiple packages in a single transaction. Multi-package transactions allow setup developers to install multiple packages as an atomic unit that are installed together, or rolled back completely. You can also apply patches to multiple products or even repair multiple products – any ...

Windows Installer XML (WiX) v3 Beta Released

December 9, 2008 Dec 9, 2008 12/9/08
Heath Stewart
Since plans were made to ship WiX v3 in the box for Visual Studio 2010, the WiX working group has been working on fixing all outstanding bugs in the WiX v3 code base. Bob Arnson uploaded packages last week as a test on SourceForge and this week the following installation packages were uploaded on the v3 Beta release page. (The ...

Different Packages are Required for Different Processor Architectures

January 15, 2008 Jan 15, 2008 01/15/08
Heath Stewart
A common question is how to create a Windows Installer package that installs 32-bit binaries on 32-bit platforms, and both 32- and 64-bit binaries on 64-bit platforms. If you're actually trying to install 64-bit binaries to appropriate directories and write to the 64-bit view of the registry, the short answer is that you can't build a single ...

Avoid Overwriting Files in Administrative Installations

April 14, 2006 Apr 14, 2006 04/14/06
Heath Stewart
Last June before the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 shipped, I discussed how during administrative installations some 64-bit files overwrote some 32-bit files and I provided a transform to fix the issue. I filed a bug and the issue was fixed before .NET 2.0 shipped. Later in the release cycle the Office Crash Reporting Tool, otherwise known as ...

64-bit Managed Custom Actions with Visual Studio

February 1, 2006 Feb 1, 2006 02/1/06
Heath Stewart
A reader who happened across my post on Windows Installer on 64-bit Platforms mentioned a problem with running 64-bit managed custom actions using the Visual Studio 2005 Windows Installer project. This also recently cropped up in an internal discussion alias.The issue is that if you build a managed class library project targeting a 64-bit ...

Shell Extensions for .NET Assemblies, Version 1.4.1993

November 17, 2005 Nov 17, 2005 11/17/05
Heath Stewart
Some time back I made modifications to the previous version of my shell extensions for .NET assemblies to display differences in the column handler for both native and managed binaries targeting the x86, IA64, and x64 platform architectures. Now that the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 has released, I've updated my public drops. (image) In a ...