Windows Installer Team Blog : Tools Vendors

Release date for MSI 4.5 now looks like Q2-ish

Windows Installer Team — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 06:48:00 GMT

Back on September 1st, I answered the question When will Windows Installer 4.5 be RTM-ed? with Q1 of 2008. Turns out that date was too optimistic. Q2 of 2008 now looks more realistic but, given the first optimistic mistake and in an abundance of caution to avoid compounding the first mistake, let's call just it Q2-ish.

For those of you wondering what happened, we've had a number of unexpected setbacks that required we either 1) cut features 2) reduce quality efforts, or 3) take more time. Taking more time is the best option available. We had believed until just recently that we could make the date but our best intentions did not hold up.

For those of you that also ship software for a living, the story of this slip may be familiar. Our chief mistakes were inadequately allocating time for a) unfilled positions, b) responding to user and partner feedback, and c) crossteam dependency execution. Through the cycle we saw these in small increments but it wasn't until the entry point for our Q1 glide path was missed that we realized the small increments were compounding.

As of the end of November, we're hard at working down our backlog of knowns. My reluctance to "set" a new date is because I'm not sure we've accounted for enough of the unknowns. 'Once bitten, twice shy' as the old saying goes. ;^)

We'll have another project status update before the end of Q1 2008.

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.

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.

Where is good, comprehensive training covering the Windows Installer?

Windows Installer Team — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 17:04:00 GMT

Our friend and blogger Aaron Stebner asked on behalf of his readers whether the Windows Installer had recommendations for "good, comprehensive training covering" the Windows Installer. This question comes up regularly and I've built up the following stock answer.

Windows Installer depends on our tools vendors to provide a considerable portion of our end to end story. There is an opportunity for the Tools Vendors to differentiate themselves in the market with the degree to which they onboard their users quickly and given them all the information they need to be successful.

Where education value from the tools vendors is not available or incomplete, one can drop down and build expertise in bare metal Windows Installer. One should expect bare metal Windows Installer expertise does take time to build as we are a system technology with a lot of interdependencies with other parts of the system (the nature of being an installer). What we provide is the Windows Installer portion of the Windows Platform Software Development Kit which contains a lot of information on ‘what?’ is in Windows Installer but has very little ‘why?’, ‘when?’, and 'how do I?'.

There is a broad range of resources available in the community for someone to build their expertise. In the Platform SDK, there is a topic “Other Sources of Windows Installer Information” which a long list of links to things like Whitepapers, Newsgroups, Blogs, Web Sites, Tools Vendors, Chat transcripts, and Knowledge Base articles.

If you’re interested in direct hands on help on a particular incident, there are a set of experts in Microsoft Product Support and Services that have deep knowledge of the Windows Installer. They are kind of hard to find so you may have to ask for the Windows Installer support team directly. If you’re in interested in training a group within your company, Microsoft Consulting Services does offer a week long on-site training on the Windows Installer. Mark Lathrope has provided the MCS services in the past.

One of the Windows Installer Most Valuable Professionals, Phil Wilson, has written a book “The Definitive Guide to Windows Installer” that I’ve heard good reviews about. Inside the Windows Installer team, Phil's book is on the list of new hire resources we recommend folks use to ramp up.

Another of the Windows Installer Most Valuable Professionals, Stefan Kruger, runs a web site http://installsite.org which offers training as well a number of other services. As I view Stefan's catalog of classes, most of Stefan's classes are specific to the authoring application that one uses to author packages.

I've noticed that when I give this answer in person, customers have appeared a bit deflated as they were hoping for more from the Windows Installer team itself. For us, it's a tough trade-off as building better training and education competes with building features into the engine that folks would like us to have.

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.

Windows Installer 4.5 Beta Accepting Nominations

Windows Installer Team — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 10:00:00 GMT

The Windows Installer team is closing in on our Beta release of Windows Installer 4.5 so it's time to open the Beta program. As usual, the connect site at http://connect.microsoft.com is the host for the program. The Windows Installer 4.5 specific subsite is at https://connect.microsoft.com/programdetails.aspx?ProgramDetailsID=1506.

We're opening nominations ahead of our beta documentation and binary release. For now, the draft white paper "Agility Trends in Package Software" is posted at https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=432&DownloadID=7300. The draft paper frames the problems we're targeting with the Windows Installer 4.5 release.

UPDATE: as E notes below in the comments below, one has to sign-up for the beta program to get access to the doc.

This paper is part of the information we offered the tools vendors on the Live Meeting call we had last month. I'm still working on improved broad live meeting logistics and a bit more polished demo that I'll provide later in the beta program. Your patience is appreciated as the information is gradually staged out of the Windows Installer team.

Thank you for joining our Windows Installer 4.5 beta program.

[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.

Editors note:

- Investigating broken link to paper. Edited down to be less conspicous for now.

- Fixed link to paper. Edited back up to the original text. Root Cause of Break: first time beta site administrator error in that I didn't grant permissions correctly. Thanks for the help (and patience ;^).

- Added note that one needs to sign up for the beta program to get the doc

Invitation to Windows Installer Tools Vendors for a Live Meeting Event

Windows Installer Team — Sat, 05 May 2007 01:00:00 GMT

We'd like to invite Windows Installer tools vendors to a Live Meeting event in the second half of May 2007....(read more)