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
Posted in
WiX at August 16th, 2008.
8 Comments.
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
Posted in
WiX at August 3rd, 2008.
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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
Posted in
WiX at July 26th, 2008.
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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
Posted in
WiX at July 21st, 2008.
2 Comments.
Loc variables — using !(loc.id) syntax to refer to strings defined in a .wxl file — let you use a single set of source files to build multiple localized installers. Common uses include obvious localizable strings like the product name and error messages. Slightly less common, but just as important to the localization process, are strings that aren’t visible to the user, like product-code GUIDs. They work great but there’s a risk: Loc strings aren’t subject to the same validation and correction code that “normal” strings go through. GUIDs are a perfect example. Normal strings in a .wxs source file are validated and normalized by the compiler, adding {braces} and uppercasing them as necessary to fit the Windows Installer rules for GUIDs.
There’s an open feature request to get some of the same validation done for loc strings. Maybe some weekend…
Executive summary
When you use GUIDs in loc strings, make sure they’re uppercase and in braces.
Why
Loc variables are one type of bind-time variable. Bind-time variables are resolved at, well, bind time, which is part of the linking/binding job that Light.exe does. Preprocessor variables, using $(var.id) syntax, are resolved by Candle.exe. (Technically, preprocessing, as the pre- prefix implies, happens even before compilation.) Since it’s the compiler in Candle.exe that does the deepest validation, bind-time variables miss out on it. For now, anyway.
Posted in
WiX at July 17th, 2008.
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