PCA Changes for Windows 7: How To Tell Us You are Not an Installer, Take 2 (because we changed the rules on you)

re: PCA Changes for Windows 7: How To Tell Us You are Not an Installer, Take 2 (because we changed the rules on you)

Christian Häfner, DATEV eG — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:31:42 GMT

Great post Chris! Thank you very much

re: PCA Changes for Windows 7: How To Tell Us You are Not an Installer, Take 2 (because we changed the rules on you)

qtormanen — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:47:55 GMT

Thanks for the explanation. I added the <supportedOS> and associated elements to my installer bootstrap and made it stop invoking the PCA, except for one scenario.

I found that running my bootstrap directly from the web (choosing Run when linking to in on the web) causes the bootstrap to still run in the Windows Vista context and therefore invoke PCA, whereas saving it first (choosing Save when linking to it on the web) causes it to run in the Windows 7 context and not invoke PCA.

Any ideas on this point?

re: PCA Changes for Windows 7: How To Tell Us You are Not an Installer, Take 2 (because we changed the rules on you)

Chris Jackson — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:40:46 GMT

qtormanen-

Is this with an internal or an external manifest? Do you have a repro? Running from the web should not affect detection of the Win7 manifest.

re: PCA Changes for Windows 7: How To Tell Us You are Not an Installer, Take 2 (because we changed the rules on you)

qtormanen — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:09:23 GMT

Chris,

I have the manifest embedded as a resource. Feel free to see if you see the same thing running www.deltamotion.com/out/RMCToolsInstall32-new.exe on a 64-bit Windows 7 RC system. This installer should fail due to its condition requiring that the OS be 32-bit (since we have a separate 64-bit installer).

I used the Resource Monitor to check the context it was being loaded in as well.

re: PCA Changes for Windows 7: How To Tell Us You are Not an Installer, Take 2 (because we changed the rules on you)

Chris Jackson — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:48:41 GMT

Hi gtormanen,

Got the repro - we're investigating now. Thanks for reporting this! I love it when my blog goes 2-way instead of just being me running my mouth. :-)

re: PCA Changes for Windows 7: How To Tell Us You are Not an Installer, Take 2 (because we changed the rules on you)

Chris Jackson — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:35:08 GMT

@gtormanen - thanks for reporting this. While we won't meet the RTM bar, we're going to get this into a Windows Update coming soon (read: the fix is already done, we just have to get it into the appropriate ship vehicle).

re: PCA Changes for Windows 7: How To Tell Us You are Not an Installer, Take 2 (because we changed the rules on you)

Ron Bauer — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:35:50 GMT

I also have another side effect from this change. I have a process that tracks processes via JobObjects. With Vista I had to add a Manifest file to all my processes so PCA would not track them and I could continue to track with my custom tool. It appears I need to modify the manifests again with a compatibility tag for Windows7. The problem is I will have to do this for every new OS, or find an alternative to jobObjects.

re: PCA Changes for Windows 7: How To Tell Us You are Not an Installer, Take 2 (because we changed the rules on you)

Chris Jackson — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:22:18 GMT

@Ron Bauer - put together a whole post to address this: http://blogs.msdn.com/cjacks/archive/2009/07/10/how-to-work-around-program-compatibility-assistant-pca-jobobjects-interfering-with-your-jobobjects.aspx

re: PCA Changes for Windows 7: How To Tell Us You are Not an Installer, Take 2 (because we changed the rules on you)

SEanS — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:20:16 GMT

Better now than later on, well done Chris.

Will you mail us when you've come up with a fix or work-a-around? PLEASE????

Thanks and good luck, SEanS

re: PCA Changes for Windows 7: How To Tell Us You are Not an Installer, Take 2 (because we changed the rules on you)

Chris Jackson — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:37:58 GMT

@SEanS - The workarounds are described above, that was the point of this post. :-) You can manifest your application as Windows 7 aware if you are the developer, or you can shim with SpecificNonInstaller if you are an IT Pro working with somebody else's software.