Windows Installer Team Blog : Beta

Issues with Patchwiz.dll v4.0

Windows Installer Team — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:28:00 GMT

Issue Description

Performing any of the following operations using patchwiz.dll v4.0 could result in data loss in the root directory:

1. UiCreatePatchPackage is called with the hwndStatus parameter set to NULL OR

2. UiCreatePatchPackageEx is called with the hwndStatus parameter set to NULL and dwFlags set to 0x8000 OR

3. Using msimsp.exe v3.0 to create Windows Installer patches while using patchwiz.dll v4.0.

Cause

When invalid parameters are supplied to UiCreatePatchPackageEx API, it bails out with an error code. However, while returning, the API erroneously uses partially initialized data to clean up the temporary directory. This partially initialized data results in deleting the writeable data in the root drive.

Resolutions

There are four resolutions for this issue currently:

1. Do not use patchwiz.dll v4.0 to call UiCreatePatchPackage and UiCreatePatchPackageEx with these parameters.

2. Get the latest patchwiz.dll v4.5 from the Windows Installer 4.5 Beta program. The latest version of patchwiz.dll there fixes the data loss issue mentioned in this blog. However, the call to UiCreatePatchPackage with hwndStatus parameter set to NULL will fail to create a patch. We understand that this is a regression. It will be fixed in Windows Installer 4.5 RTM.

3. Use patchwiz.dll v3.1.

4. Use msimsp.exe v4.0 to create Windows Installer patches while using patchwiz.dll v4.0 or higher.

[Author: Hemchander Sannidhanam]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified at http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm.

Windows Installer 4.5 Beta 2 Now Available!

Windows Installer Team — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 03:00:00 GMT

Hello everyone --

I am pleased to announce that Windows Installer 4.5 Beta 2 is now available from the Microsoft Connect site. If you have not signed up for the beta yet, please do - we are listed as "Windows Installer 4.5" under the "Available Connections" section of the site. If you have already joined the beta, please head back to the Connect site and download the updated bits, tools and documentation.

This is our last planned beta release before we ship, so your feedback at this stage is especially important!

Thanks.

- Tyler

PS: Due to some unfortunate timing, the Microsoft Connect team will be rolling out a new version of the Connect site on Saturday, March 22nd and the site will not be available from 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM (PDT). If you have issues accessing the beta program afterward, please leave a comment on this thread so we can follow-up on any issues.

[Author: Tyler Robinson]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified at http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm.

Windows Installer 4.5 beta 2 - coming soon (and a chat too!)

Windows Installer Team — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:47:00 GMT

Hello everyone! First off, I wanted to let you know that I have re-joined the Windows Installer (MSI) team as a Lead PM, so you all will be hearing a lot more from me in the future <grin>

I have a few exciting announcements to make today:

I know you all have been wondering what has been up with Windows Installer 4.5, and I am pleased to announce that we plan to release Beta 2 within the next few weeks. If you would like to access the beta program, please read Robert's prior posting on this topic. There will be an announcement posted to the blog when the Beta 2 is available. Your feedback on beta 2 is welcomed and also critical in this stage of our release, as this is our last scheduled beta before we RTM.
We have also scheduled an MSDN Technical Chat on Windows Installer 4.5 on April 3, 2008 at 10:00 AM (Pacific). If you have not participated in these chats before, they are a great forum for you to interact directly with members of the team! Click here to add the chat to your calendar so you don't miss it!

Please stay tuned to the blog for more exciting announcements coming soon ...

What is the protocol for releasing beta software that depends on Windows Installer 4.5 beta?

Windows Installer Team — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:02:00 GMT

A question been raised in a couple of contexts is the protocol for shipping a beta on beta software.

Question
What is the protocol for shipping beta software that depends on Windows Installer 4.5 beta?

Answer

We encourage producing a beta software that integrates the features of Windows Installer 4.5 beta. There is no license that allows redistributing the Windows Installer 4.5 beta. This does lead to the challenge of how to release a coupled beta.

During the Windows Installer 4.5 Beta period, the most resilient design is to enable the features for Windows Installer 4.5 on a "lights up" basis. This means that when Windows Installer 4.5 is present on the machine, the software include the new enhancements and when it is not, there is a fallback path that works on the shipped versions of the Windows Installer. This is a bit more work but customers report they benefit from this flexibility.

For our mutual customers that want to try both your beta software and the Windows Installer 4.5 beta together, we ask that you point your customers to our beta site on http://connect.microsoft.com. While we recognize is a bit of an additional hassle, we've found that beta customers are more resilient than most to the hassles of a beta. Further, this enables problems found in the Windows Installer 4.5 beta to be directly reported and reported and tracked through the http://connect.microsoft.com tools.

Some have noted a practice in other parts of Microsoft called a "go live" license. The terms of a "go live" license are such that they do not Windows Installer 4.5 beta case. The coupled beta approach with "lights up" functionality and a redirect to the Windows Installer 4.5 beta site on http://connect.microsoft.com is the preferred solution.

[Author: Robert Flaming]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified at http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm.

Speaking at Packaging Event 2007 in Amsterdam on October 11th

Windows Installer Team — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:54:00 GMT

The Packaging Event 2007 in Amsterdam has kindly invited the Windows Installer team to speak on October 11th, 2007. Robert Flaming, Windows Installer Program Manager, will be giving a talk on

Windows Installer (MSI) 4.5 and Other Trends in Packaging

This talk will discuss the targeted architectural changes in the upcoming Windows Installer 4.5 release as well as other trends we see in packaging and how these trends will effect System Administrators. Topics to be discussed include:

-       Multiple-package product deployment such as Office 2007 and the upcoming SQL Katmai release
-       Servicing files that are common to many packages whether from MSMs or due to multi-instancing
-       Other trends we are seeing in packaging such as data center packaging, imaging, and personalization

Other talks at the conference can be seen through the speaker's page. See you there.

Did you really mean to build a patching feature that we can't patch to because of a schema change?

Windows Installer Team — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:46:00 GMT

Our friends with WiX (principally bloggers Rob Mensching and Heath Stewart) had some questions about the schema changes. One of those questions was:

Question:
Did you really mean to build a patching feature that we can't patch to because of a schema change?

Context:

Windows Installer 4.5 supports adding a custom action that will run during patch uninstall. For beta, this was accomplished by adding a new bit msidbCustomActionTypePatchUninstall to the CustomAction table. Given the value of the bit msidbCustomActionTypePatchUninstall is 0x8000, it means the schema for the Type column of the CustomAction table changes from i2 (the integer column data type) to i4 (the double integer column data type)

Answer:

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. No, this was not our intent. As I recall, the change from an attribute bit in the i2 range to the upper half of the i4 range was a side effect from a bug fix.

Thanks for the suggestions to have a separate table or an separate "Ex" column in the same table. These are both quality ideas for enabling supporting patching in this patching feature.

Development is considering this feedback and is formulating their solution.

MSDN posted Windows Installer 4.5 Beta documentation

Windows Installer Team — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:15:00 GMT

Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) now contains the Windows Installer 4.5 beta documentation. From the What's New in Windows Installer 4.5 page, you'll find information on our new multi-package transaction APIs: MsiBeginTransaction, MsiEndTransaction, and MsiJoinTransaction. You'll also find context for the Embedded features including MsiEmbeddedUI table, MsiEmbeddedChainer table and the EmbeddedUIHandler prototype.

Many thanks to Mark, Jen, Matt, Lee, and Julie for getting these pages out to you.

A starting point for Windows Installer 4.5 embedded UI?

Windows Installer Team — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 07:48:00 GMT

A few questions have come in asking for a starting point for building a Windows Installer 4.5 Embedded UI.

Feature Design

As we put together the ideas behind the Embedded UI features, we aspired to provide a simple extension off the preexisting features in the Windows Installer platform.

Simple Starting Idea

When we started designing this feature, our target scenario went something like this:

An ISV has spent a lot of time building a really cool external UI for their Windows Installer based experience users have a habit of trying to invoke the .MSI file directly rather than the setup.exe bootstrapper file. Generally this ISV puts up an plain dialog "Please invoke [ProductName] from the setup.exe file next to this file.". It wastes the users time and hurts the package's customer satisfaction.
Over time, we added nuances to this feature but our base assumption was that the ISV was the type of ISV that was ready to invest into an external UI.
Guiding Principle: what would an external UI do?

With the simple idea that a package author just wanted to put their custom UI inside the package, most of the complexity we referenced back to our guiding principle: what would an external UI do? We even considered a "zero cost migration from external UI" requirement but it didn't fit scenarios or the ISV persona who was already prepared to build custom code to get their custom UI experience. A little more code was acceptable as long as reuse was in reach.

Friends and Foundations

One of the other early tests we had for ourselves was whether we thought the friends of Windows Installer could use this feature with the foundations already in place. Some of our bigger ISV and Tools Vendor friends already had custom external UI handlers so we wanted the cost for them to be low to build from their foundation. For smaller or newer ISV or Tools Vendors, we scouted our documentation and samples for a viable starting point for their foundation.

A Starting Point

For an ISV without a preexisting starting point, here's what we thought you'd use to build start from.

First think of DLL custom action

When custom actions are needed, DLL custom actions are the way to do. They provide the capacity for the maximum integration with our architecture, including message passing for UI and logging, ability to read the database in the session, and the ability to request being executed NoImpersonated. Further most of the tools provide some starting framework to get an ISV off the ground with a DLL custom action. For us, considering the Embedded UI handler as a specialized version of a DLL custom action allowed us to reuse our custom action sandbox as the embedded UI sandbox.

Second think of external UI message processing

Once the Embedded UI DLL has been booted, it needs to do it's work. The next thing a UI handler will need is to process messages. Although we do not currently have a external UI sample in the Windows Installer portion of the Platform SDK, we do have some code samples in the MSDN documentation. Of these, there is sample code for MsiSetExternalUI and MsiSetExternalUIRecord. Of the messages, progress is the one that will occur most frequently so we have a sample for that. Once the progress sample is in place, the work remaining is to expand the number of case statements handled to match the list of message types from INSTALLUI_HANDLER_RECORD. These case statements will each need to decide whether further parsing is required and we've documented that too at Parsing Windows Installer Messages. Sometimes the message parsing is going to require communicating a message back to the Windows Installer which you can learn to do with Returning Values from an External UI Interface Handler.

Third switch to your favorite User Interface design environment

The Windows Installer UI tables are from the Wizard 97 era of UI guidelines. User Interface design has some a long way in the 10 years since and the Windows Installer UI tables have not tried to keep up all that much. The Windows Installer team has advised ISVs seriously consider building their own favorite UI when they reach the limits of the Windows Installer.

How about a sample?

Sorry, we don't have one yet but we do have it in the list of feedback that we plan to work on after we finish the engine work itself.

What Windows platforms will Windows Installer 4.5 ship in?

Windows Installer Team — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 18:14:00 GMT

Our friends at InstallShield had some questions about schedule and platforms. One of those questions was:

Question:
What Windows platforms will Windows Installer ship in?

Answer:

Windows Installer 4.5 will initially ship as a Windows redistributable component via download center. At RTM, redistributable packages will support installing to Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows Server 2003 SP1 and SP2, Windows Vista RTM and SP1, and Windows Server 2008. These redistributable packages will support the three CPU architectures Windows to which these platforms ship: x86, x64, and ia64. These choices for platform support are consistent with the Windows Service Pack road map.

Just this week, it was published that

which also aligns with the Windows Installer 4.5 release date.

Given the rough alignment of these dates, one would naturally wonder whether these pending of releases will include Windows Installer 4.5. The short answer is: no. The longer answer is: the logistics of live-live integration of a Windows component, such as Windows Installer, within a larger Windows release requires more time for both efforts so we've opted to not push Windows Installer 4.5 into these releases.

Looking ahead, it is a customary practice for future service packs and Windows releases to include a roll-up of the latest QFEs to its components. To the process inside of Windows, Windows Installer 4.5 is simply a big QFE. This QFE status is why Windows Installer 4.5 is available via download center but not yet Windows Update. The requirements for Windows Update distribution will require work that will occur during the process of integrating into the next SP release(s).

When will Windows Installer 4.5 be RTM-ed?

Windows Installer Team — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 17:49:00 GMT

Our friends at InstallShield had some questions about schedule and platforms. One of those questions was:

Question:
When will Windows Installer 4.5 be RTM-ed?

Answer:

Our current plan is to target the first quarter of calandar year 2008. This date is driven by the Wave 2008 release goals.

Do the new API's Msi(Begin/Join/End)Transaction work with external UI as well as the new internal UI?

Windows Installer Team — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:17:00 GMT

Our friends at InstallAware had some questions on issues we have yet to answer in the beta MSI.CHM. One of these questions was:

Question:
Do the new API's Msi(Begin/Join/End)Transaction work with external UI as well as the new internal UI?

Answer:

Yes, Begin and End work from external UI/chainer. For the internal case, the Begin and End are implicit in the fact there is a install ready running so one only needs Join for the internal case.

Have a look at Figures 3, 10, and 12 in the white paper labeled "Agile Product Advances in Windows Installer 4 5 - Beta Release Draft" for a simplified view of the expected data flow. Figure 3 is a base diagram for what is done today using a external chainer. Figure 10 is adds the Begin and End APIs to the external chainer control flow seen in Figure 3. Figure 12 will shows the control flow for an internal chainer.

The API we're missing for Beta is a change owner where

an external chainer can pass control to an internal chainer
two external chainers can pass control between each other

Given Figure 3 is our base assumption for generic chainer behavior, if anyone’s chainer does follow this pattern, we'd love to know.

Is it possible to silently run the Vista installation package for MSI 4.5?

Windows Installer Team — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Our friends at InstallAware had some questions on issues we have yet to answer in the beta MSI.CHM. One of these questions was:

Question
Is it possible to silently run the Vista installation package for MSI 4.5?

Answer

Fair question. I didn't get that documentation updated for the beta. I'll enter a doc bug for the MSDN topic "Windows Installer Redistributables" at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372856.aspx.

The .MSU file format is a new package type for Windows Vista (and above) which contain updates to the Windows platform. These .MSU packages have an executable called wusa.exe to which you can pass command line switches. This separate EXE method is similar to the way msiexec.exe is the runtime for.msi packages. The wusa.exe is more formally known as the Windows Update Stand-alone Installer.

There are two KB articles for how to work with the Windows Update Stand-alone Installer. These are

"Description of the Windows Update Stand-alone Installer (Wusa.exe) and of .msu files in Windows Vista" at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934307
"When you run Wusa.exe together with the /quiet option to try to install certain software packages on a Windows Vista-based computer, the installation fails" at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929761/.

The need for KB 929761 is something we found late in testing and are still investigating our options.

With the new Vista specific packaging technology, the old instructions for how to defer the reboot also needs to be updated. When the new .MSU packages are processed, the Transacted File System (TxF at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365456.aspx) is used. One of the qualities of the Windows Update Stand-alone Installer use of TxF is that if any file is in use, the entire update is deferred until after reboot. Given the Windows Shell often has Windows Installer loaded, we expect this means that applying the Windows Installer 4.5 Beta on Vista will often require reboots.

We do have reboot reduction work planned for after Beta. We are conscious that most users find one reboot difficult to manage and more than one reboot baffling. This presents an opportunity for chainers to provide high quality reboot management.

Can I talk about the Windows Installer 4.5 Beta now? Yes, please

Windows Installer Team — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 21:46:00 GMT

A number of Windows Installer enthusiasts have asked whether they can talk about the Windows Installer 4.5 Beta now. The answer is: yes, please ;^)

We’ve found some of the best feedback comes from when the community of experts aggregate their separate points of view via collaboration and consensus.

Please send us your feedback via the feedback system on the Windows Installer 4.5 Beta connect site at http://connect.microsoft.com.

Windows Installer 4.5 Beta is Now Posted

Windows Installer Team — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 21:27:00 GMT

The Windows Installer 4.5 Beta binaries, CHM, headers, and libs are all now accessible at http://connect.microsoft.com.

We are eager to hear your feedback on our new features. We’d also like your feedback if you find compatibility problems that are unique to the Windows Installer 4.5 beta. The feedback link on the Windows Installer 4.5 Beta connect site at https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/default.aspx?SiteID=432.

Thanks for your help creating a great new version of Windows Installer.

Windows Installer 4.5 Beta Credits

Engineering

Developers
Hemchander Sannidhanam, Kiran Annamraju, William Cheng, Carolyn Napier

Testers
Zainab Hakim, Rajesh Kesarla, Chun-Yen Wang, Ken Wong, YuanQing Ji.

Contractors
David Myers, Randy Chen, Anton Lee

Program Management
Robert Flaming

Management

JBM Partners
John Colleran, Bambo C. Sofola, Michael Beck

BCD Partners
Ben Fathi, Chuck Chan, Darren Muir

Alumni Managers
David D’Sousa, Larry Engle, Greg Chapman, Om Sharma, Marc Lauinger, Tyler Robinson

We’d also like to thank the many Microsoft employees who partnered with us to bring you Windows Installer 4.5.

Walkthrough for Signing up for Windows Installer 4.5 Beta

Windows Installer Team — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:12:00 GMT

Here's a walkthrough of the process I've used to signup for the Windows Installer 4.5 Beta

1) go to URL http://connect.microsoft.com/availableconnections.aspx
2) sign in (using a creating new hotmail account - steps omitted for brevity)
3) after completing new account creation, the page returns me to the https version of the Available Connections page at https://connect.microsoft.com/availableconnections.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0
4) scroll down alphabetically to "Windows Installer 4.5 Beta"
5) Click on Apply link in the far right column of the Windows Installer 4.5 Beta row
6) I'm taken to page https://connect.microsoft.com/SelfNomination.aspx?ProgramID=1506&pageType=1&SiteID=432 which has a Continue button at the bottom which I click.
7) I'm taken to a terms of use page at https://connect.microsoft.com/registration/terms.aspx?regType=2&cru=%2fSelfNomination.aspx%3fProgramID%3d1506%26pageType%3d1%26SiteID%3d432&cu=%2favailableconnections.aspx%3fwa%3dwsignin1.0 at the bottom of which there is an I Agree button which I click
8) I'm taken to a register page at https://profile.microsoft.com/RegSysProfileCenter/wizard.aspx?wizid=f81448ea-824f-4ca7-9ed1-39af10a9b425&lcid=1033&fu=%2fregistration%2fregistrationconfirmation.aspx%3fcru%3d%252fSelfNomination.aspx%253fProgramID%253d1506%2526pageType%253d1%2526SiteID%253d432&cu=%2favailableconnections.aspx%3fwa%3dwsignin1.0 which I then fill in the information and click the Continue botton at the bottom
9) I'm taken to a Verify Ownership of Your Email alias page at https://profile.microsoft.com/RegSysProfileCenter/wizard.aspx?wizid=f81448ea-824f-4ca7-9ed1-39af10a9b425&lcid=1033&fu=%2fregistration%2fregistrationconfirmation.aspx%3fcru%3d%252fSelfNomination.aspx%253fProgramID%253d1506%2526pageType%253d1%2526SiteID%253d432&cu=%2favailableconnections.aspx%3fwa%3dwsignin1.0
10) Switch to email and see I've received an email from the connect server (after a bit of waiting). Open the email and click the embedded link (omitted here for brevity)
11) the link from the email takes me to a E-Mail Verification Confirmation page at https://profile.microsoft.com/RegSysProfileCenter/ConfirmEmail.aspx?lcid=1033&EmailEntered=rflaming%40microsoft.com&eck=GQvY1J4y0OzM%252fLNB2Hm%252bcw&CP=2&brand=Microsoft&Wizid=f81448ea-824f-4ca7-9ed1-39af10a9b425&fu=https%3a%2f%2fconnect.microsoft.com%2fregistration%2fregistrationconfirmation.aspx%3fcru%3d%252fSelfNomination.aspx%253fProgramID%253d1506%2526pageType%253d1%2526SiteID%253d432&Sec=1 at the bottom of which is a Continue button
12) after clicking Continue, I'm taken back to the root of the connect site so I switch back to the Verify Ownership of Your Email page and click Continue on that page
13) I'm taken to a Welcome to Connect page where I enter a friendly name and click the Continue bottom at the bottom of the page
14) I'm finally taken to the Windows Installer 4.5 Beta site at this URL https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=432
15) On the left hand side I see a "Downloads" menu item so I click it
16) I'm taken to the page https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/Downloads.aspx?SiteID=432 where I see the two white papers
17) I click on the first link and it takes me to this page https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=432&DownloadID=8270
18) I click on the download link and I get a prompt from the Gold Bar (of IE7) whether I want to allow the download
19) I right click on the Gold Bar and select download file...
20) I get the dialog "Do you want to open or save this file?" and choose Open
21) Word boots with the first document
22) I go back to the browser and click the back button until I get to the list of available downloads at https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/Downloads.aspx?SiteID=432
23) I click the second link on the available downloads page which brings me to the page https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=432&DownloadID=8271
24) I click on the download link and I get a prompt from the Gold Bar (of IE7) whether I want to allow the download
25) I right click on the Gold Bar and select download file...
26) I get the dialog "Do you want to open or save this file?" and choose Open
27) Word boots with the second document