Development Archives

Help Improve the .NET Framework Deployment Experience

Heath Stewart September 22, 2008 Sep 22, 2008 09/22/08

My colleague Peter Marcu, who is leading the development effort on the new deployment experience for the .NET Framework, is seeking information from our developer customers how you deploy the .NET Framework for your applications. If you’re a developer who requires and needs to deploy the .NET Framework to support your applications, ...

Functional Testing of Cmdlets

Heath Stewart April 7, 2008 Apr 7, 2008 04/7/08

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 ...

Fixes in Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 and 3.0 SP1

Heath Stewart December 18, 2007 Dec 18, 2007 12/18/07

A reader pointed out that the list of fixes for .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 were published. I also see from the .NET Framework 3.5 download page that the list of fixes for .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 1 were also published. Both are listed below. But what is the relationship between 3.5 and 2.0 SP1 and 3.0 SP1? I mentioned previously...

Shim Database to XML

Heath Stewart November 3, 2007 Nov 3, 2007 11/3/07

Extracts data as XML from a shim database used for application compatibility. Please leave feedback on the tool here on this page. This was developed using what little public documentation is available on MSDN as well as some experimentation at other functions that were exported from apphelp.dll, such as SdbReadBYTETag() which I reasoned ...

EXE Custom Actions are Bad

Heath Stewart October 24, 2007 Oct 24, 2007 10/24/07

Windows Installer custom actions that launch executables (base custom action type msidbCustomActionTypeExe, 0x2) are typically bad and should be avoided. How are they bad? Let the Windows Installer team count the ways.During internal audits we question any EXE custom actions (CAs) but inevitably some make it into the product. Typically these ...

Detection Logic fixed for KB937061 (MS07-052)

Heath Stewart September 14, 2007 Sep 14, 2007 09/14/07

Customers have been offered KB937061 for Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 from Microsoft Update when they have already installed it. The Microsoft Security Response Center blog has more information about the problem and what they have done to fix it.I wanted to add that because patches are cached according to their package code, you do not ...

No Environment Change Notification when Reboot Required

Heath Stewart August 10, 2007 Aug 10, 2007 08/10/07

The documentation for the WriteEnvironmentStrings action states, Note that environment variables do not change for the installation in progress when either the WriteEnvironmentStrings action or RemoveEnvironmentStrings action are run. On Windows 2000, this information is stored in the registry and a message is sent to notify the system of...

Custom Action Guidelines

Heath Stewart April 20, 2007 Apr 20, 2007 04/20/07

Rob Mensching, father of Windows Installer XML (WiX), blogs about why managed custom actions are a bad idea. Aaron Stebner follows up by saying (and has said before): How do you know what's natively supported? Those who know me already know what I'm going to say: read the docs. The Windows Installer SDK has some information if you look for it...

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista Available

Heath Stewart March 7, 2007 Mar 7, 2007 03/7/07

As Aaron notes, the Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista is available on the download center. This patch is available for all supported languages of Visual Studio 2005, unlike the beta which was available in English and Japanese. You should first uninstall the beta update for Vista. Note that you do not have to right-...

Installation Guidelines for User-editable Configuration

Heath Stewart December 21, 2006 Dec 21, 2006 12/21/06

A common problem with installations is user-editable files and registry keys. Configuration of this nature is a problem for every installer technology, but here are some guidelines to help developers overcome problems like users' preferences being reset during repair. Windows Installer is a data-driven installation technology. Installing a ...

Visual Studio Setup

Development Archives - Page 2 of 7 - Visual Studio Setup