Visual Studio Setup

Installation and containerization of the Visual Studio family of products

Windows Installer on 64-bit Platforms

Beginning with Windows Installer 2.0 installation developers can write installation packages that target 64-bit platforms. At first only IA64 was supported but support for AMD64 — now collectively referred to along with EM64T as x64 — was added in Windows Installer 3.0. Many questions are asked regarding how to author 64-bit ...

Logging for the New Patch Wrapper

One of several apparent improvements for the new patch wrapper is better logging support. More often than not if a problem occurred while trying to install the patch it was difficult to diagnose because there was no logs for the patch installation itself. A user would have to extract the .msp file and install it using msiexec.exe and pass ...

Patch Wrapper Improvements

A new patch wrapper will be shipping for patches targeting the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005. A lot of work went into simplifying the wrapper and removing managed code, as well as standardizing the command-line options.The previous patch wrapper for the .NET Framework 1.0 and 1.1, and Visual Studio .NET 2002 and 2003, ...

ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT and Sequencing

Sequencing Windows Installer patches is typically straight forward but when the original product install or a previous, non-superseded patch defines as 1 in the Property table a custom supersedence plan is necessary to support writing Add/Remove Program registry keys correctly with patch supersedence and sequencing in mind...

A Better Way of Working with ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT

Just when you thought the series on was over, I present to you an improved plan for supporting custom supersedence so that you can ship effectively superseded patches and still support N-1 patches, which are patches that apply to the RTM or a previous Service Pack, but are produced after the SP that should supersede them and all other patches...

Installing Windows Installer on Checked Builds of Windows

I mentioned previous that patches for the .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 will require Windows Installer 3.1 to be installed on Windows 2000, XP, 2003, and future Windows platforms. A reader mentioned that he can't install the Windows Installer 3.1 redistributable on his checked (debug) build of Windows XP SP2. An error dialog was ...

Repair Your Products After an OS Upgrade

The Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, Visual Studio 2005, and SQL Server 2005 will soon be shipping. If you'll be installing these products and are planning on upgrading your operating system later be sure to repair the product from the Add/Remove Programs (ARP) control panel.Some components don't install on certain operating systems. Mostly ...

.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 Patches will Required MSI 3.1

The .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005, along with SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006, will be officially launched November 7th. .NET and Visual Studio, at least, will require that you have Windows Installer 3.0 installed on Windows NT-based platforms, including Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, and newer. If you have ...

Double-clickable Patches

Beginning with Windows Installer 3.0, bare .msp files can be double-clicked (invoked with the default verb) and will install correctly, assuming no other problems. Windows Installer will determine the updated features based on the changed components and will automatically reinstall those features. The effect is the same as specifying those ...

Building Quality Windows Installer Packages

Building quality installation packages not only helps set up your application correctly but also helps maintain your application. A quality installer fosters quality patches. The Windows Installer SDK offers a lot of information about how to author installation packages but how do you do it right? Why not ask the Windows Installer team?...