Joy of Setup

WiX v3.0.4429.0 was released on Friday, 29-August-08. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.4429.0/.

New features

• Aaron added properties to WixVSExtension to detect Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1.
• Aaron also added a new custom action, WixExitEarlyWithSuccess, which makes it easy to exit without error in a major upgrade when a later version is already installed.
• I updated make.bat and wix.build to pass desired verbosity from the NAnt side of the build to the MSBuild side.
• Candy Chiang, of the team integrating WiX into Visual Studio, contributed many updates to the WiX.chm documentation.

Bug fixes

• 1591591: scawebsvcext.cpp does not work in IIS 5
• 1741663: WebAppPool Fails on IIS < 6.0
• 1848752: NativeImage CA never runs
• 2010047: Cannot add wixlib to project
• 2041989: Candle exception when inculding an invalid wxi file
• 2077095: Firewall Extension fails
• Eric St. John fixed a bug in the CloseApplication custom action to correctly send close messages to all the top-level windows of the specified process, which should fix the problem noted on wix-users where CloseApplication didn’t work with VB6 apps.

WiX v3.0.4422.0 was released on Friday, 22-August-08. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.4422.0/.

New features

• Aaron added documentation on properties used in the MSBuild tasks and targets.
• Dan Manson added a strong-name skip-verification entry so builds on x64 OSes work without registry hacks.
• Eric St. John added the ElevatedCloseMessage attribute to the WixUtilExtension CloseApplication element (and corresponding custom action implementation), to send a close message to the target process’s windows while running deferred.

Bug fixes

• 1708072: Access Violation with Large Cabinets
• 1827123: Can’t create sql database with name contains ‘-’
• 1881660: IIS Extension: Unable to install Certificate from MSM
• 1881856: IIS Extension: Unable uninstalling certificate under VISTA
• 1930640: PFXImportCertStore() fails to delete private key containers.
• 1984738: SchedXmlFile does not return ERROR_INSTALL_USEREXIT
• 2013549: Pyro is unnecessary slow
• 2023959: ConfigureEventManfiest returns ERROR_INSTALL_FAIL on cancel
• 2034934: Binder variable File IDs are not modularized
• 2041989: Candle exception when inculding an invalid wxi file
• Chris Araman cleaned up some warnings in native code.
• Mike Carlson fixed the preprocessor to handle variable names containing a dot in ifdef/ifndef checks.
• Mike also fixed the WixUtilExtension User custom action so that on uninstall, it removes the user from groups it was added to if the user isn’t deleted on uninstall.

[Updated with actual features -v- bug fixes.]

WiX v3.0.4415.0–code-named Heat-Wave-in-Seattle?!–was released on Friday, 15-August-08. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.4415.0/.

New features

• Jason added to DTF support for MSI 4.5’s embedded UI, along with a sample that uses WPF for the UI.
• Eric St. John added support for standard command-line switches to the WiX v3 bootstrapper.

Bug fixes

• 1273447: Can’t put RegLocator inside DrLocator
• 1613071: Unable to save VS project
• 1832500: Preprocessor: nested include uses wrong directory
• 2051748: SqlDatabase table definition error
• I worked around a bug in MSI 4.5’s support for embedded UI. The FileName column purports to be of the Filename type, which requires both short (8.3) and long file names. It turns out only one file name, long or short, is supported.
• Aaron fixed bugs in the ShellExec custom action topic and the how-tos that referred to it.
• Jungwook Bae, of the Visual Studio team integrating WiX, fixed some bugs in Votive to make it behave more like C# projects.

WiX v3.0.4401.0 was released on Friday, 01-August-08. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.4401.0/.

New features

• Neil Enns continues to add topics and fix bugs in the documentation.
• Mike Carlson made the Id/Name attribute default values (in the File element, from the @Source attribute) when used from a fragment.

Bug fixes

• 2011737: Deleting an Element with XmlConfig always results in Failure
• 2027482: Exception when AssemblyManifest does not exist
• 2031498: EmbeddedUIResource

WiX v3.0.4325.0 was released on Friday, 25-July-08. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.4325.0/.

New features

• Mike Carlson changed the preprocessor to stop evaluating expressions in a false <?if?> block. That lets you check for the presence of a preprocessor variable, for example, and use it in the block "knowing" that it’s defined.

Bug fixes

• Jason and Mike cleaned up FxCop warnings.
• Mike also added an error message when the cab-handling code couldn’t create temporary files.
• Aaron cleaned up some command-line handling code.
• 2010040: Bind files into the library file not working.
• 2013944: CAs always fail on Windows 2000 (or lower).
• 2016490: Votive doesn’t honour Visible item metadata
• 2020595: 3.0.4309.0 breaks msi filename compatibility 
  Note that this change places localized output into subdirectories named after the culture (e.g., en-us). The previous change embedded the culture id in the output name (e.g., foo.en-us.msi) which might have caused problems because MSI package names can’t change except by major upgrade. Thanks to blogless Neil for the MSBuild mojo.
• 2025134: Using ExtractFiles Method
• 2025411: Localized incremental builds are somewhat broken

WiX v3.0.4318.0 was released on Friday, 18-July-08. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.4318.0/.

New features

• Neil Enns, still late of the MSBuild team and still working on secret stuff, added two new properties to the OsInfo custom actions that detect the presence of a WDDM driver and whether Desktop Window Manager (DWM) composition is enabled. See "OSInfo custom actions" in WiX.chm for details.
• Aaron added directory properties for .NET Framework root directories. See the "WixNetfxExtension" topic in WiX.chm for details.
• Mike Holcomb added better error messages in the setupexe "mini-chainer" when installation errors occur.
• I added support for Unicode filenames used as source files in cabinets.
• I added PathGetKnownFolder, PathIsAbsolute, and PathConcat to the DUtil library.

Bug fixes

• Neil fixed a bug in wix.targets that wasn’t passing culture information to Light when the project itself wasn’t localized.
• Mike Carlson from the Visual Studio team cleaned up warnings reported by PREfast.
• 1881462: Add support for "Trusted People" certificate store.
• 1942826: Build fails if Wixlib reference is an UNC path (take two)
• 1979210: Dark 3.0.4123.0 InvalidCastException on Windbg 6.9.3.113 MSI
• 2009171: Dark: Error on RadioButton table processing
• 2011818: Build output path is not saved
• 2016489: Votive adds empty Link metadata to renamed items
• 2017732: Dark 3.0.4227.0 InvalidCastException

WiX v3.0.4311.0 was released on Friday, 11-July-08. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.4311.0/.

New features

• Neil Enns, late of the MSBuild team and now working on secret stuff, contributed a new section of how-to topics for WiX.chm. (This was actually new in v3.0.4220, but I didn’t catch it. Mea culpa!)
• Neil also added support for multiple .wxl (loc-string collection) files in .wixproj projects.
• The SecureObj custom actions, triggered by the use of the PermissionEx element in WixUtilExtension, now support 64-bit systems, including both x64 and IA64.
• Jason added support for MSI 4.5 multi-package transactions to DTF.
• I added new file-i/o functions (FileReadPartial and FileWrite) and error reporting for XML parsing errors to the dutil library.
• Aaron added new documentation in addition to fixing WixUI bugs.
• Votive now has fancy new high-res/high-color icons on Windows Vista.

Bug fixes

• Several contributors cleaned up warnings from static analysis tools like PREfast and FxCop.
• I fixed a buffer-overflow bug in dutil’s MultiSzPrepend.
• I added support for Win64 to the XML-parsing functions in dutil.
• 1722516
• 1784221
• 1847299
• 1897640
• 1967749
• 1986923
• 1992289
• 1995551
• 1997311
• 2000147

WiX v3.0.4220.0 was released on Friday, 20-June-08. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.4220.0/.

New features

• None. Hey, it’s almost like we’re trying to ship this puppy or something.

Bug fixes

• 1706949
• 1765011
• 1994875
• 1995551
• 1997078

WiX v3.0.4214.0 was released on Saturday, 14-June-08. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.4214.0/.

New features

• DTF can now load assemblies from the GAC.
• Candle’s -platform switch has been renamed -arch to match the sys.BUILDARCH variable. There is no change to the .wixproj InstallerPlatform switch.

Bug fixes

• 1687207
• 1882870
• 1903668
• 1912368
• 1992288

WiX v3.0.4207.0 was released on Saturday, 7-June-08. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.4207.0/. Note that WiX v3.0.4206.0 was released on Friday but contains a bug that breaks MSBuild-based projects.

New features

• All the command-line handling for tools like Candle.exe was refactored to simplify repetitive code and do better error-checking.
• Project reference preprocessor variables are now populated by the project reference name rather than the project base name itself.
• When adding a new component to a new feature in a patch, the feature is now automatically added to the patch.
• .wixproj projects now define project output groups.
• Votive projects now support x86, x64, and ia64 platforms (dropping the invalid AnyCPU platform).

Bug fixes

• An intermittent DTF bug setting property values.
• The DTF ComponentInfoCollection and FeatureInfoCollection enumerators now work correctly.
• 1793251
• 1983810
• 1985794