Visual Studio Setup

Installation and containerization of the Visual Studio family of products

WiX Archives - Visual Studio Setup

Redirect the Package Cache using registry-based policy

June 9, 2015 Jun 9, 2015 06/9/15
Heath Stewart
Visual Studio can require a lot of space on the system drive, and previous methods of redirecting the Package Cache can be tricky for some people to set up or even maintain as junctions across volumes may be removed on boot. The cache is there for good reasons and has significantly reduced the failure rate, but for people with smaller system ...

How to relocate the Package Cache

February 11, 2014 Feb 11, 2014 02/11/14
Heath Stewart
Visual Studio can require a lot of space on the system drive. Based on years of data collected from customers’ installations from the Customer Experience Improvement Program, we took advantage of this feature in Burn – the Windows Installer XML (WiX) chainer – to eliminate most errors during repair, servicing, and even uninstall. This ...

Windows Installer XML (WiX) v3.6 Released

September 6, 2012 Sep 6, 2012 09/6/12
Heath Stewart
The Windows Installer XML (WiX) team has released version 3.6 which, most notably, released a powerful and customizable chainer named Burn. The Visual Studio 2012 setup applications were built on Burn using features such as package caching, reference counting, and sticky patching to improve the overall experience from past releases.Head on ...

How Visual Studio 2012 Avoids Prompts for Source

July 26, 2012 Jul 26, 2012 07/26/12
Heath Stewart
Requiring source packages during installation, repairs, and even uninstall are common occurrences for some customers. The core issue is that Windows Installer needs the source location of the package and its files to install - and can't find them automatically - when attempting to restore the machine to the state it should be in (according to ...

Easier Authoring for Slipstreaming Patches

July 26, 2012 Jul 26, 2012 07/26/12
Heath Stewart
Slipstreaming Windows Installer patches is, technically, installing the MSP simultaneously with the MSI as a single transaction. This is, effectively: The applicable transforms (both the authoring changes and patch transforms) are applied to the MSI and the MSI is installed with those changes from the start. Both the MSI and MSP are cached ...

Announcing Windows Installer XML v3.6 Release Candidate

May 31, 2012 May 31, 2012 05/31/12
Heath Stewart
On a day of many great Release Candidate (RC) announcements, I should not forget another important RC milestone: Windows Installer XML (WiX) v3.6 RC.We’ve made a lot of improvements, simplified some scenarios, and fixed a lot of bugs. Download v3.6 RC and give it a try and let us know if you find any other issues...

Packaging Caching in Burn

March 7, 2012 Mar 7, 2012 03/7/12
Heath Stewart
There are times when repairing or servicing a product that source media is required. As more product installs move to web-based installs, these prompts for source are harder to solve. In order to replace missing, corrupted, or older files, the source is required because those files have to come from somewhere.Burn, the bootstrapper application...
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WiX

Introducing Sticky Patching and Add-ons

February 21, 2012 Feb 21, 2012 02/21/12
Heath Stewart
Late last week I checked in a feature for Windows Installer XML’s (WiX) chainer, Burn, that I’m really excited about (ask my colleagues): sticky patching.This is a feature at the bundle (what we call our composition of packages for Burn) level that supports related bundles of type “Patch” and “Addon”. ...
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WiX

Introducing Package Reference Counting

February 21, 2012 Feb 21, 2012 02/21/12
Heath Stewart
These days it’s more common to install products composed of more than one installer package. Modern applications are often a loose fitting of localized components and being authored into a single package just isn’t practical.For example, a localized application will undoubtedly have neutral or single-language binaries while using ...

Introducing Managed Bootstrapper Applications

October 28, 2011 Oct 28, 2011 10/28/11
Heath Stewart
Now that WiX v3.6 has been released, I introduce the managed bootstrapper application (MBA) interoperability layer. It’s been available for a while actually, and if you’ve installed any builds of WiX v3.6, or the Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0 Developer Preview you’ve seen it in action. While Burn – the WiX bootstrapper engine – and...