Category: windows installer service
What’s new in MSI 4.0?
MSI 4.0, the latest version of windows installer service was released with Windows Vista recently. Most of the enhancements in msi 4.0 are in relation to features found in windows vista or Longhorn, e.g. the integration with Restart Manager, ability to communicate with UAC to ensure proper installation on Vista and Longhorn. In addition to [...]
Choosing between ClickOnce and Windows Installer Service!
ClickOnce is a new deployment technology created by Microsoft to ease the deployment of applications over the web. This new deployment technology was first unleashed in 2004 and has quite a fan following. ClickOnce was first shipped with .Net Framework 2.0 and has close integration with .Net applications. Windows Installer Service is a system level [...]
New Properties in Windows Installer 4.0 and later
Microsoft has released Windows Installer Service 4.0 with Windows Vista. This new version of msi engine introduces some new properties which are exclusively available to msi based installations targeted for Windows Vista & later. MSIARPSETTINGSIDENTIFIER – The MSIARPSETTINGSIDENTIFIER property contains a semi-colon delimited list of the registry locations where the application stores a user’s settings [...]
Making Sense of ICE Validation!
ICE a.k.a Internal Consistency Evaluators are a set of rules created by Microsoft to help validate a windows installer package. ICE Rules check the integrity of the package as well as ensure that the Windows Installer best practices were followed when creating an msi package. Before deploying your msi based installation, it is recommended that [...]
How to design a windows installer package for Windows 7 (UAC enabled systems)?
Microsoft introduced a new security model called the UAC in Windows Vista. The UAC forces all users including administrators to run Windows in a lock down environment. The UAC a.k.a User Access Control, locks the machine down and prompts the user to elevate privileges when an msi package is run. The UAC continues to be [...]