Joy of Setup » WiX highlights http://www.joyofsetup.com Bob Arnson's blog about setup and servicing Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:41:43 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 WiX v3.5 supports Visual Studio 2010 beta 2 http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/10/30/wix-v3-5-supports-visual-studio-2010-beta-2/ http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/10/30/wix-v3-5-supports-visual-studio-2010-beta-2/#comments Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:26:29 +0000 Bob Arnson http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/10/30/wix-v3-5-supports-visual-studio-2010-beta-2/ So that the WiX Working Group can enjoy Hallowe’en on Saturday, WiX v3.5.1030.0 with support for Visual Studio 2010 beta 2 was released today. You can get the bits at http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.5.1030.0/. This isn’t a full beta release – Burn is still in active development and isn’t ready for prime-time use yet – but we want to support everyone using the beta 2 release of Visual Studio 2010, which shipped last week.

Candy, Visual Studio program manager and WiX Working Group babysitter/cat-herder, had this to say about the features in this release:

Visual Studio 2010 Beta shipped on 10/21. With the team’s hard work and agility, we were able to release the WiX support on VS2010 Beta 2 today! Here are some highlights for this release:

  • Extension Manager Integration – Now you can download and install WiX directly from within the VS IDE by launching Extension Manager
  • Major performance improvement during project building – No more IDE freezing during build
  • Automatic upgrade from VS2008 to VS2010 – no more manual editing of wixproj files to change the tools version
  • Improved IDE experience including drag/drop of nodes, copy/paste of items, and project references
  • Added Visual Studio 2010 Express products detection in the WiX VS Extension – New in Beta
  • Over 40 + bug fixes

I’m pleased we were able to get a release supporting beta 2 out so quickly and I’m very excited about the “no more IDE freezing during build” improvement. There are several other smaller enhancements that will make WiX v3.5 a no-brainer upgrade when it ships next year.

In the meantime, if you’re using Visual Studio 2010, please grab this build and be on the lookout for future weekly releases. Problems, questions? Send mail to wix-users, file bug reports, or submit feature requests.

]]> http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/10/30/wix-v3-5-supports-visual-studio-2010-beta-2/feed/ 9 Highlights of WiX v3.5.0529.0 http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/30/highlights-of-wix-v3505290/ http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/30/highlights-of-wix-v3505290/#comments Sat, 30 May 2009 14:39:36 +0000 Bob Arnson http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/30/highlights-of-wix-v3505290/ WiX v3.5.0529.0 was released on Friday, 29-May-2009. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.5.0529.0/.

But please don’t, unless you’re champing at the bit to help us work on the Burn chainer or Votive. This week’s release is focused on getting the v3.5 tree building using the beta release of Visual Studio 2010 and other infrastructure pieces involved in building and publishing a new branch of the WiX toolset. As such, it’s a developer’s release and isn’t ready for general use.

That said, as promised, here’s what you can look forward to in the very near future:

  • Burn, the new WiX multi-package chainer platform.
  • Votive integratation for Visual Studio 2010.
  • Extension support for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0.
]]> http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/30/highlights-of-wix-v3505290/feed/ 7 Highlights of WiX v3.0.5329.0 http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/30/highlights-of-wix-v3053290/ http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/30/highlights-of-wix-v3053290/#comments Sat, 30 May 2009 14:39:02 +0000 Bob Arnson http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/30/highlights-of-wix-v3053290/ WiX v3.0.5329.0 was released on Friday, 29-May-2009. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.5329.0/.

WiX v3.0 is in release-candidate phase, approaching release: There are zero v3.0 bugs open. See Rob’s empty chart. Only critical bugs breaking core use cases would be considered for WiX v3.0 now.

Developer ID Description
Aaron   Updated error message that’s displayed when there’s a mismatch between a database’s codepage and characters used in the database. Oh, if only there were a way of representing all those characters…Alas, until then, MSI databases require codepages and that means that you have to use the right subset of characters for the codepage you’re using.
Aaron   Added a topic on integrating WiX into a Team Foundation Build lab project.
"Various artists"   Fixed typos in error messages, changed the logging output of a couple of MSBuild tasks to not look like error messages, added schema support for links inside element descriptions.
Aaron 2795343 GenerateBootstrapper ApplicationFile must be relative path

So I guess WiX West team in Redmond has been relaxing as WiX v3.0 winds down…oh wait, I guess we have been cooking up a little something…

]]> http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/30/highlights-of-wix-v3053290/feed/ 0 Highlights of WiX v3.0.5322.0 http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/23/highlights-of-wix-v3053220/ http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/23/highlights-of-wix-v3053220/#comments Sun, 24 May 2009 03:56:48 +0000 Bob Arnson http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/23/highlights-of-wix-v3053220/ WiX v3.0.5322.0 was released on Friday, 22-May-2009. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.5322.0/.

WiX v3.0 is in release-candidate phase, approaching release: There are only 6 v3.0 bugs still open. See Rob’s bug breakdown.

Developer ID Description
Aaron   Removed the block from the WiX installer that prevented installation when the Visual Studio distribution of WiX was installed. Now that the Visual Studio distribution of WiX is no more, is bereft of life, rests in peace, and is otherwise an ex-distribution, the block is no longer needed.
Me   Fixed "missing" pages in the online WiX v3.0 manual. They weren’t missing, just using inconsistent case, which matters on SourceForge’s servers.
Eric 2777114 Problem with wixproj msbuild macro values
Me 2786736 Wix uses wrong msbuild version for .vcproj references
Eric 2792176 ConvertToAbsolutePath task not found VS2005
Me 2792525 Missing punctuation in WixUI_en-us.wxs
]]> http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/23/highlights-of-wix-v3053220/feed/ 0 Highlights of WiX v3.0.5315.0 http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/15/highlights-of-wix-v3053150/ http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/15/highlights-of-wix-v3053150/#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 13:15:12 +0000 Bob Arnson http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/15/highlights-of-wix-v3053150/ WiX v3.0.5315.0 was released on Friday, 15-May-2009. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.5315.0/.

WiX v3.0 is in release-candidate phase, approaching release: There are only 7 v3.0 bugs still open. See Rob’s bug breakdown.

Developer ID Description
Me   Based on a wix-users report, I added debug output logging to the WixUIValidatePath custom action (normal MSI logging doesn’t work because it’s a custom action triggered from a DoAction control event). I also added the WIXUI_DONTVALIDATEPATH property to suppress WixUIValidatePath calls.
Aaron   Added documentation annotations for deprecated elements in wix.xsd so information will appear in IntelliSense and not just the .chm.
Brian   Added the capability for heat to take an extension via the command line similar to how the other tools do using -ext Extension.
Me   Fixed user-reported typo in fr-FR localization.
Neil 2609695 Add support for harvesting performance counters
Eric 2790472 "error CNDL0288" using localized merge modules
Mike 2792009 XmlFile crashes in XPath mode when file doesn’t exist
]]> http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/15/highlights-of-wix-v3053150/feed/ 0 Highlights of WiX v3.0.5308.0 http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/09/highlights-of-wix-v3053080/ http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/09/highlights-of-wix-v3053080/#comments Sat, 09 May 2009 19:57:46 +0000 Bob Arnson http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/09/highlights-of-wix-v3053080/ WiX v3.0.5308.0 was released on Saturday, 9-May-2009. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.5308.0/.

WiX v3.0 is in release-candidate phase, approaching release: There are only 6 v3.0 bugs still open. See Rob’s bug breakdown.

Developer ID Description
Aaron   Added detailed documentation about customizing the dialog sets in WixUI.
Aaron   Removed build-specific version information from the WiX installer, now that we’re so close to release.
Mike   Fix WixSqlExtension to properly handle strings that contain identifiers that are already escaped.
Jason 2380391 Project reference to .wixlib forces light on every build
Mike 2782585 PermissionEx Error -ExecSecureObjects didnt close MSIHANDLE
Brian 2783049 Heat output produced does not Link, but does compile.
Eric 2785180 VSExtension does not work well when used in a Merge Module
Aaron 2786681 some missing intellisense tags
Me 2786736 Wix uses wrong msbuild version in vs2008: Note that this requires your .wixproj to be declared
<Project ToolsVersion="3.5" …>
so MSBuild builds the .wixproj using v3.5 tools.
Eric 2787116 WixExtensionSearchPaths should be outside <Target>
Brian 2788210 heat built wxs will not compile
]]> http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/09/highlights-of-wix-v3053080/feed/ 0 Highlights of WiX v3.0.5301.0 http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/02/highlights-of-wix-v3053010/ http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/02/highlights-of-wix-v3053010/#comments Sat, 02 May 2009 16:14:08 +0000 Bob Arnson http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/02/highlights-of-wix-v3053010/ WiX v3.0.5301.0, Lei Day edition, was released on Friday, 1-May-2009. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.5301.0/.

WiX v3.0 is in release-candidate phase, approaching release: There are only 8 v3.0 bugs still open. See Rob’s bug breakdown.

Developer ID Description
Aaron   Added detailed documentation on the dialogs and dialog sets in WixUI.
Heath   Added details to the Validate element documentation.
Jungwook   Reduced memory consumed during preprocessing.
Jason   Fixed intermittent failure in DTF ComponentInstallation.Qualifiers
Jason   Fixed bad naming of DTF error message embedded resources
Me 2215791 WixDifxAppExtension should be updated to use DIFx v2.1.1
Jason 2414725 Right-click Menu slow to appear
Jason 2738413 MakeSfxCA should fail if MS.D.WI assembly is not found
Eric 2767279 Reference Paths do not update Reference Hintpath
Rob 2780538 Sid not found, "domain\user" without explicit domain attr.
Rob 2780667 Wrong source line numbers for @DiskId
Jason 2780674 Unpack of archive fails if target file has S or H attribute
Fredrik 2782395 ConfigureComPlusInstall infinite loop during silent install
Brian 2782537 Heat -? does not produce help
Brian 2782762 Dark lose attribute WebSite in WebVirtualDir
]]> http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/05/02/highlights-of-wix-v3053010/feed/ 0 Highlights of WiX v3.0.5224.0 http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/04/25/highlights-of-wix-v3052240/ http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/04/25/highlights-of-wix-v3052240/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:31:10 +0000 Bob Arnson http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/04/25/highlights-of-wix-v3052240/ WiX v3.0.5224.0 was released on Friday, 24-April-2009. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.5224.0/.

There are 11 v3.0 bugs still open. See Rob’s bug breakdown.

Developer ID Description
Jason   Added some convenience methods to DTF to get streams to archived files without extracting the file from the archive to disk.
Jungwook   Added error-detection for bad patch authoring in Pyro.
Rob   Added switches to control whether smart-cabbing should create the smallest cabinets possible (the default) or cabinets that are possibly larger but possibly faster, depending on factors like file count and duplicate file count.
Brian 2769262 Harvest project with satellites misses culture specific part
Brian 2776082 -dr behaves strangely
]]> http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/04/25/highlights-of-wix-v3052240/feed/ 0 WiX v3.0 release candidate 2 build available http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/04/18/wix-v30-release-candidate-2-build-available/ http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/04/18/wix-v30-release-candidate-2-build-available/#comments Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:24:23 +0000 Bob Arnson http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/04/18/wix-v30-release-candidate-2-build-available/ The WiX Working Group is pleased to announced that the WiX v3.0 RC2 build (v3.0.5217.0) is now available. We encourage all users to upgrade to this build for the latest fixes and to verify how ready WiX v3.0 is for release. For more information, see Highlights of WiX v3.0.5217.0 and the release notes. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.5217.0/ or from the WiX SourceForge.net releases page.

]]> http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/04/18/wix-v30-release-candidate-2-build-available/feed/ 1 Highlights of WiX v3.0.5217.0 http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/04/18/highlights-of-wix-v3052170/ http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/04/18/highlights-of-wix-v3052170/#comments Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:42:53 +0000 Bob Arnson http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/04/18/highlights-of-wix-v3052170/ WiX v3.0.5217.0 was released on Friday, 17-April-2009. You can download it from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.5217.0/ or from the WiX SourceForge.net releases page.

There are 10 v3.0 bugs still open. See Rob’s bug breakdown.

Announcement

WiX v3.0.5217.0 is the WiX v3.0 RC2 build. We encourage all users to upgrade to this build for the latest fixes and to help verify that WiX v3.0 is ready for release.

Changes

The following changes are since my last WiX Highlights entry for WiX v3.0.5120.0. There have been several WiX releases since then but this is my first relatively calm weekend since relocating to Cambridge to write them up.

Developer ID Description
Aaron   Doc additions and fixes.
Eric 2058168 Need fallback language support for localization files.
Brian 2211152 Harvesting a VS Project requires ToolsVersion=3.5
Justin 2318790 Votive does not set VS2005 variables correctly
Jason 2529664 Votive Wxs Project output name escapes build variables
Jason 2662406 Votive Locks Referenced Assemblies in Memory
Jason 2663956 Error creating or opening a Load Test
Eric 2683755 Incorrect BaseIntermediateOutputPath in wix.targets
Eric 2685596 Reference Paths in Visual Studio UI not working
Eric 2696086 Referencing a .WXL in your .wixproj causes strange behavior
Mike 2706770 iis:Certificate still creates extra private key files.
Rob 2708717 Empty Merge ConfigurationData throws exception
Jason 2710297 DTF Custom Actions Fail To Run
Brian 2712994 Heat fails with NullReferenceException on website
Jason 2716886 EmbeddedUI fails with no visual feedback
Rob 2722325 Grammar error in WixUI_en-us.wxl : UITextSelLocalLocal
Brian 2726721 heat.exe : error HEAT0001 : Item has already been added.
Rob 2738387 fileutil.h packaged in wix sdk/inc won’t link with dutil.lib
Aaron 2738629 Incorrect link in manual-wix3/check_for_dotnet.htm
Jason 2741235 Cannot add folder to a WiX project
Mike 2748157 Blank password not handled correctly for certificates
Jason 2748323 Error loading Wix projects in VS IDE in FOLLOWING BUILDS
Eric 2749259 Useless shortcut created by a Game element with no PlayTask
Brian 2749598 Harvest file File/@Source does not include root directory
Mike 2750437 PerformanceCounter uninstall rollback removes perf counters
Eric 2750885 Cannot enter default culture in properties dialog
Eric 2750892 Cannot build neutral culture
Peter 2759518 $(env.PROGRAMFILES(X86)) not supported
Peter 2768755 Missing ComponentRef or Directory
Brian 2770117 Problems Harvesting Individual File using file harvester
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