As I mentioned previously, one of my favorite examples of a tight, clean Windows Installer package for a real product–VirtualBox–succumbed to a dreaded VBScript custom action when they released v1.6.0. Predictably, it caused errors (during uninstallation, because this custom action ran during uninstall only). VirtualBox 1.6.2 dropped that custom action. The VirtualBox installers still have [...]
Microsoft Source Analysis for C# — known inside Microsoft as StyleCop — is now available. We use StyleCop on new WiX code, in addition to FxCop to analyze code for style consistency and correctness. Now that StyleC…er, Microsoft Source Analysis for C# is available outside the campus grounds, we can include the settings files we [...]
Google announced the release of Google Earth 4.3 today. Given the recent release of their WiX-based setup for the Google App Engine SDK, I had to give it a shot. (It helps that my day job also deals with 3-D terrain imagery.) When you click the link to “Download Google Earth 4.3” (and accept the [...]
I’ve had the good fortune to work on several agile software-development teams over the years. If you’ve ever hated having software you’ve developed sit on the shelf for months or years until the next release, shipping several times a year feels good. Shipping almost every month is even better. Shipping almost every week is phenomenal. [...]
A key part of most setup development is testing from a known state to see that your setup leaves the machine in another known state. Usually, it’s from a “clean” state to one with your app installed but I’m sure I’m not alone with needing to duplicate bugs that come from a “dirty” machine. In [...]