InstallAware Blog

For the third year in a row, InstallAware has won ComponentSource’s Best-Selling Publisher Award. Thank you for your support – we couldn’t have done this without you!

What’s the secret to our success?

o The Bleeding Edge: Tired of waiting for weeks, months, and sometimes even years for updates from your installation technology vendor? InstallAware has built a track record of being the first to support new releases of Windows, .NET, and SQL Server – within 48 hours, if not less!

o Broadest Platform Support: Losing business to ever stranger installer errors reported by your frustrated customers trying to deploy your product? The same InstallAware setup binary runs out-of-the-box on Windows 95 Gold through Windows Server 2012, guaranteeing bullet-proof installations every time.

o Embrace and Extend Windows Installer: Feeling confined to a straitjacket by the limitations of Windows Installer? Transcend all limitations using InstallAware‘s Native Engine, even switching at runtime between the Windows Installer and the Native Engine with a single line of code.

o Code-Generating IDE: Does your setup project give you a sense of what trying to build a Concorde with a sledgehammer feels like? InstallAware‘s IDE generates code in the background, letting you drop-down to the exact area of your setup script you need to customize with precision targeting.

o Web Integration: Do your efforts in web-enabling your setups and publishing web updates induce strong headaches? InstallAware‘s Partial Web Deployment and Triple-Mode Web Updates are so well-designed, you’ll be wondering how you ever managed to live without them!

Celebrate InstallAware‘s success with us – and enjoy a double discount on all our products and editions when you order direct from InstallAware this week:

http://www.installaware.com/top50publisher.asp

Stack our 34% competitive upgrade discount, even if you don’t have a qualifying competitive upgrade serial number; together with an extra 20% discount:

Ordering URL: http://www.installaware.com/buydirect.asp

Competitive Upgrade Old Serial Number for 34% Off: 1N5T4LL5H13LD

Stacked Discount Coupon for 20% Off: TOPPUBLISHER

All orders must be received by close of business on Friday, March 8th, 2013.

Discover InstallAware and the beauty of simplicity – InstallAware is built by developers for developers, and it shows. We’re confident you’ll agree.

The setup engine failed to correctly persist the 32 bit/64 bit state of the installation when persistent variables were used.

The Install Service command editor window, in the Service Groups tab, incorrectly suggested that variables were disallowed.

The setup engine failed to initialize on Windows 2000 (Windows NT 5.0).

Under rare combinations of SD card reader hardware and drivers, the setup engine occasionally displayed initialization errors that could be safely dismissed.

Uncompressed Native Engine setups running from read-only media such as CDs, DVDs, HD-DVDs, and Blu-Ray discs failed to clear the read-only attribute on files copied to destination folders.

The Get Folder Location command Folder setting was displayed incorrectly for three locations in the command editor and the MSIcode script.

The pre-defined variable SFXPATH was occasionally being incorrectly initialized to the wrong folder, together with its co-dependent variables.

The WordWrap property of the CheckBox and RadioButton controls were forcibly being set to FALSE at runtime.

The Get Folder Location command Folder setting was displayed incorrectly for the majority of selections in the command editor and the MSIcode script.

Command line builds could not override the value of the NOEXE compiler variable if it was defined at the project level settings.

A Native Engine installation would miss current version Native Engine per-user installations if previously uninstalled per-machine installations were present on the target system.

Registry self-registration data import failed when new lines were found in registry data.

The Register Assembly command failed to locate .NET 4.x assemblies in the GAC.

Pinning shortcuts created duplicate pins if they were previously pinned.

Visual designer code generation did not check if code was commented out before emitting new statements in standard code regions.

Visual designer code generation occasionally emitted multiple redundant sections of code.

The assemblies design view occasionally displayed incorrect check-box states when check-boxes were in a disabled state.

MSIcode command editor windows did not provide alphabetical sorting to variables, component names, and other similar sortable elements.

The InstallAware setup loader dialog had visual artifacts at corners of the setup loader progress bar when running under the Aero Basic theme.

The InstallAware IDE did not save the minimization state of the ribbon toolbar.

Calling Apply Install twice with pinned shortcuts occasionally caused duplicate pins for the same shortcuts.

Automatic elimination of double-backslashes was not applied to Write Registry commands when running under the Native Engine.

A Native Engine installation would miss older version Native Engine per-user installations if previously uninstalled per-machine installations were present on the target system.

A memory leak in the automation interface caused Visual Studio 2003, Visual Studio 2005, and Visual Studio 2008 Add-Ins to fail.

The Native Code Setup Engine failed to update system files when it was not possible to obtain original file permissions successfully.

PackageAware failed to scan protected system files when it was not possible to obtain original file permissions successfully.

Microsoft SQL Server database connections occasionally returned incorrect error codes when the server could not be reached.

Delete Files Recursive did not delete files that were protected by the system.

.NET 4.x support was not available in the .NET Plug-In Bridge.

Complex passwords rarely caused setup script corruption.

The .NET 4.5 runtime installation was erroneously triggered based on .NET 4.0 availability.

The .NET 4.5 runtimes failed to extract on 64 bit operating systems with web builds.

The .NET 4.5 runtimes failed to install with single file builds.

The InstallAware version compiler variable was misreported as 14.00.

The InstallAware self-extractor failed to extract files which transcended the MAX_PATH file length limitation.

The Web Media Block extraction mechanism failed to extract files which transcended the MAX_PATH file length limitation.

PackageAware did not pick up changes made to the file system and registry in protected areas.

PackageAware snapshot comparisons were too slow.

Adding Web Updates to a project did not automatically add built-in web update dialogs.

Progress bars flickered on Vista and newer Windows operating systems.

Set Access Control did not apply permissions to 64 bit registry hives.

The Dialog Editor did not prompt to save an open document when the control tab order or control properties were changed.

The IDE did not import 64 bit COM Server self-registration data.

Scheduled Web Updates did not work with the Native Code Setup Engine.

.NET 3 runtimes did not install on Windows 8.

.NET 2 runtimes did not offer to retry failed downloads on Windows 8.

Paths were not automatically converted to use global system variables after COM Server self-registration data captures.

In rare instances, the built-in Web Update script faulted with division by zero errors.

The help documentation was out of date for non-scheduled web update modes.

The Native Code Setup Engine did not properly restore original system permissions when attempting to update files and registry keys.

The Native Code Setup Engine failed to update file system and registry areas with protected system permissions.

The setup engine failed under odd combinations of user accounts with Unicode names and various system locales for non-Unicode programs.

The InstallAware setup did not offer to download .NET 2.x runtimes again on Windows 8 upon failure due to poor network conditions.

The Native Code Setup Engine failed to write to the system32 folder when running in 64 bit mode on 64 bit operating systems starting with Windows Vista.

The Create Virtual Folder command failed to bind the requested version of ASP.NET when running on a 64 bit version of Windows Server 2003.

The File Bag plug-in failed to copy files when doing builds with file system paths exceeding 256 characters.

The Group Policy Wizard generated MSI files failed to run under all odd combinations of Unicode user account names and system locales for non-Unicode programs.

Continuing the subject of racism…

 

As racist as some governments can be, so are some companies.

 

Share-It, a payment services provider based out of Europe, have been engaged in racism for well over a decade.

 

How do I know?

 

Any time I place an order from a Turkish IP, Share-It declines the order with the generic reason “Unfortunately, we were unable to charge your credit card for your order.” This has been happening for well over a decade.

 

Need I mention that the credit cards in question have never had an issue with their credit limit? In fact, the very same order would succeed when placed on a non-Turkish IP (even with the same credit card).

 

That’s 10 years of racism, brought to you by the ecommerce company Share-It.

 

This despicable and wanton act of racism has not gotten better – it has only gotten worse over the years.

 

For instance, in previous years, Share-It representatives would actually get on the phone to verify orders that their fraud protection system deemed suspicious. This had helped me clear orders, albeit, with additional hassles introduced – such as requests for copies of the back and front of the credit card used while placing the orders, as well as an official government ID.

 

Now, even calling someone at Share-It does not result in a resolution.

 

Share-It was a German company that was later acquired by Digital River, a US company. Unfortunately, Digital River did nothing to stop the racism at Share-It after their acquisition.

 

Surely, there are many European companies that are not racist.

 

Our own ecommerce provider Cleverbridge is one such company, with whom I have not had negative experiences of racism. They were actually founded by some former Share-It people, and they are a German company as well. Clearly, some companies are making better choices than others and declining racism.

 

Racism tends to breed racism in return, so one cannot be too careful in consciously attempting to prevent any further instances of racism.

 

If you are using Share-It as your payment provider, I would strongly urge you to use another payment provider. There’s no telling how many legitimate orders you are missing!

InstallAware increased prices for customers in the Schengen Visa zone (most of Europe) by 30% on Monday, 17^th of December 2012.

 

“Apple do it, so I am doing it too…”

 

My friend Harry Kelly (ComponentSource) cautioned me strongly against increasing prices in Europe. His thinking was that, unless there is some specific value-add for the European region, the increase cannot be justified. He provided credible rationale that companies who did charge higher prices indeed provided localized services or some other value-adds which justify the increase in cost.

 

Apple’s Cow Manure

 

Of course, no matter what the rationale, we all feel it’s basically greed. For example, Apple sells their tablets in Europe, at US prices –clearly these are as localized as their phones are. The phones they sell at a heavy markup. So why not the tablets? Apple faced stiff competition in the tablet space, so they just couldn’t jack up the prices. It’s all about the competition.

 

InstallAware’s Facts

 

What’s InstallAware’s rationale then? Is it some justification of greed? No, it is not. Our rationale for the recent price increase is that our costs of doing business in Europe are getting exponentially higher. How/why? Take a hint from the opening line of this blog.

 

My First Schengen Visa

 

I must have gotten my first Schengen visa in 2003. I was unemployed (erm, an entrepreneur) back then. I had no work history and no assets. I was trying to get to Cologne to attend my first European shareware conference. I suffered countless long waits in line, many an early morning, in front of the German embassy in Ankara. To say these waits were undignified would be an understatement. Having received college education in the US, I had grown accustomed to a basic semblance of human rights. All of these were being unilaterally violated by the treatment of visa applicants at the German embassy in Ankara.

 

I did eventually get my visa issued. It was valid for one week only! This visa was certainly the shortest I have ever been issued. Talk of freedom of travel!

 

My Subsequent Schengen Visa’s

 

My first morning in line outside the German embassy, I’d had a very unnerving encounter. A stranger had shown up right next to me and started volunteering information on how to get visas for travel to Germany. Usually I get suspicious when information is being volunteered in this manner…

 

… so while my mind was spinning around about the implications of what I was hearing from this strange volunteer of information, I was completely unprepared for the eventuality that his predictions would turn out to be entirely accurate. He said that I’d get my first visa for a week. And then the next one would be issued for two weeks. Then the next one for a month, assuming I never overstayed my visa. And then two months or three months, after which, six months – or a full year if I was lucky.

 

Now at this point, I already had a ten year US visa on my passport. So it all was a bit too  much to take in. I was in denial about what I was being told.

 

In fact, the visas that I would be eventually issued over the years followed this exact same pattern. So much so, that it would be in 2011 when I was finally issued a full year’s visa.

 

By which point, of course, I was no longer unemployed – or penniless. So it did not come as a surprise to me, and when I applied for my latest Schengen visa recently, just weeks ago, I was expecting a 2 year, or dare I say, 5 year visa!

 

European Racism

 

My latest Schengen visa, which was issued less than a month ago, is valid for three weeks, and it is a single entry visa. And the maximum stay allowed is a total of ten days!

 

This visa is utterly non-usable. This visa grounds me and restricts my freedom of travel in Europe completely. How come I’ve ended up being a persona-non-grata in Europe?

 

I cannot come up with any other rationale for it other than European racism. Sure, in 2003, Germany had plenty of reasons to be concerned about an unemployed visitor. But in 2012, Holland has absolutely no reasons to be concerned about my visit. If anything, they should be trying to encourage me to stay longer, so I can spend my money in their nice country.

 

We did appeal to the Dutch embassy in Ankara. Our appeal was rejected. The utter rape of the anonymous information volunteer’s pattern was final!

 

InstallAware R&D is Based in Turkey

 

Ever since our founding in 2003, InstallAware R&D has been based out of Ankara, Turkey.

 

If the founder of InstallAware has trouble getting Schengen visas, imagine what InstallAware employees must go through trying to get Schengen visas?

 

The “fiat” cost of a visa is absolutely negligible compared to the opportunity cost and especially the loss of time with a special emphasis on the indignities laid on the applicant.

 

Our accountants have worked this cost out to be about 30% of our net costs. Which aligns, rather nicely, with InstallAware’s switch to EUR based pricing in Europe.

 

You May Appeal!

 

Unhappy that you have to pay an extra 30% just because you’re based in Europe? Somehow am I not surprised by your reaction!

 

Because we’re not racist, we’ll issue you a 30% discount coupon if you:

 

1)      Call or fax the Dutch embassy in Ankara, and let them know you are calling in connection with the subject matter of this blog.

 

OR

 

2)      Call or fax your EU representative, asking them to terminate their racist practice of limiting Turkish freedom of travel in Europe.

 

AND

 

Let them know that a global company with R&D headquartered in Turkey has been forced to pass on Schengen visa costs to you, their customer in Europe.

 

For your convenience, the phone and fax numbers of the visa department of the Dutch embassy in Ankara are provided below:

 

Voice: +90 312 409 17 50 (GMT+2 13.30- 16.30 hours only)

Fax: +90 312 409 18 91

 

Provide us with a recording of the phone conversation or a copy of the fax (including the transmission sent confirmation) and we will provide you with a 30% discount, offsetting the effects of our EUR based pricing in your region.

 

InstallAware will honor this discount on direct orders as well as reseller orders.

 

Thank you for helping us make the world a better place!

 

PS: Please do not be tempted to circumvent our pricing through proxies etc. InstallAware has to decline orders from companies/individuals based in the Schengen visa zone that have circumvented our geo-IP targeting.

Dear Installation Developer,

Take a look at some of the developments we’re feeling excited about as we prepare to celebrate the arrival of 2013:

o Free Drive Press 2.0: In the spirit of Christmas, we’ve partnered with MagicRAR to bring you a free edition of Drive Press 2.0 – free as in beer:

http://www.magicrar.com/drivepress.exe

o Triples Windows Compression: Drive Press 2.0 safely frees up 3.5 times more space than Windows, as tested on a brand-new Windows 8 computer:

http://www.magicrar.com/drive-press.html

o Designed for SSDs, Multi-Threaded: Squeeze every last byte out of your expensive SSD drives, and compress your existing Windows installations in 1/10th the time!

Celebrating the holiday season, InstallAware is also making it easier for you to get the latest and greatest version of InstallAware:

http://www.installaware.com/installaware_studio_15.asp

Here’s the breakdown of the discount in the private URL above:

1. The base price (displayed in strike-out font) incorporates your unconditional 34% competitive upgrade discount (even if you don’t own a competitive product like InstallShield).

2. The final price (displayed in green) takes another 15% off the already reduced competitive upgrade pricing.

If you prefer, enter coupon code 2013 below on any competitive upgrade product offer (matched with competitive upgrade serial SC13NC3):

http://www.installaware.com/buydirect.asp

Choose the software installer used by timeless software products such as Microsoft’s Office (Activation Wizard), Crytek’s Crysis, and Embarcadero’s Delphi. Choose the most innovative product in the market – InstallAware 15 – brought to you by the largest independent software installation toolkit vendor.

We always strive to provide our customers with the timeliest and most accurate service possible. While as customers we are all likely to complain of “poor service” when we don’t get everything we want right when we need it (keep in mind that at InstallAware, we are very close to this ideal), – I wanted to share InstallAware‘s experiences with the Google AdWords team to put things in the right perspective – not only for the benefit of our over demanding customers, but also for the benefit of all Google’lers there – in whose shoes I’d feel quite a bit of embarrassment after reading the below.

On 8/13, we contacted our Google account rep Summer Prevé (summer.p@google.com) with suspicions of click fraud for the preceding week. We had been gradually increasing our AdWords spending – and seeing a correlated return in revenue – until a very anomalous drop the week before.

After much back and forth trying to convince Summer that the issue at hand was not with our tracking systems and what-not, on 9/21, Summer finally wrote “I’ll be in touch in the next 3 business days when I have answer from invalid clicks.” By this time it had been about six weeks since our initial contact, and we had provided Google with direct access to all of our server logs (and everything else they asked us for).

Unfortunately, we never heard back. Summer was uncomfortable with our “not letting the issue go”, and was complaining that she was assigned to 250 AdWords accounts, in addition to ours. I suggested that she transfer us to another representative who might be more motivated to provide us with a resolution.

Enter Michael Griffin (michael.gri@google.com), on 10/23 (almost three months after our escalation to Google). Michael has been incomparably worse than Summer. To date, Michael responded to only two emails from InstallAware.

The first one ominously read “Please call me asap at 650-253-5671.” This wording suggested that he had finally obtained some good, actionable information – upon which I called him immediately and he promptly hung up with some random excuse.

His second email, on 10/30, read “I’ve been out of the office. Please give me a call at 650-253-5671.” He has not returned a single email or phone call ever since.

Now, our spending on AdWords has been scaled back to about 5% of what it was before the incident on 8/6. Clearly, it is in Google’s interest to respond to us – but the employees they have brought on board apparently couldn’t care less. I reached out to my EO network, asking for feedback, and this is what I heard from them:

“Google representatives have always been hit or miss (mostly miss) for us…we really don’t want to be on their radar. They do have the ability to ‘tweak’ your account and turn it up or down some – somewhat forcing you to spend more to basically stay in one place…I do know that Google Reps only respond to folks with spends higher than 10k per month…” – John

“Good luck. Dealing with Google is not easy. They know they are the 800 pound Gorilla and they behave like it too.” – Jack

It is 11/17 today – more than three months after we spotted a problem, and provided Google with all they asked for in trying to obtain a resolution.

As with Bing, who had magically de-listed InstallAware in 2011 (and were ignoring our contact requests at the time), we have no recourse other than to attempt to engage the attention of Google via a public Internet posting. Hopefully somebody at Google still cares!

By popular demand, we are extending InstallAware 15 pre-order pricing for another week. As many of you have noticed, we recently increased our prices. This promotion is your last chance to order InstallAware 15 at prices better than even before. But cost should always be secondary when making your InstallAware 15 purchase decision – choose InstallAware because it is the most accessible, advanced installer – making your work building setups fun again:

Unicode sans Unicode: InstallAware now installs your product on hardened Unicode environments where most other installers would fail with cryptic error messages. Switch character sets at runtime for seamless internationalization. All without sacrificing non-Unicode platform support.

Native Engine 2.0: InstallAware‘s proprietary Native Code Setup Engine 2.0 embraces and extends Windows Installer. Install files and settings to protected system areas without ever compromising system security. All without sacrificing Group Policy deployment support.

Dynamic Product Bundles: Bundle one or more third party products with your applications. Change which products are bundled after having already published the bundle, accommodating your ever-evolving business rules.

Fastest Setup Capture: InstallAware‘s proprietary setup repackaging technologies are now officially the fastest in the industry. Eliminate the need for clean machine captures – and convert any low-level system sleuthing effort to a working setup.

Triple Mode Web Updates: Completely royalty free and in three flavors – scheduled, manual, or automatic. As long as an Internet connection is available, the new Automatic Web Updates guarantee that only the latest version of your app is available at all times.

Sounds too good to be true? If you like to have your cake and eat it too – a bullet-proof engine, fastest time to deployment, and also the ultimate customizability – then it IS too good to be true, unless it’s InstallAware 15:

http://www.installaware.com/installaware_studio_15.asp

Here’s the breakdown of the discount in the private URL above:

1. The base price (displayed in strike-out font) incorporates your unconditional 34% competitive upgrade discount.
2. The final price (displayed in green) takes another 25% off the already reduced competitive upgrade pricing.

Your last day to order is Friday, November 16th, 2012. If you wish to pick a different InstallAware 15 edition, please use coupon VERSION15 at our main online store to take 25% off all our regular prices (and remember to choose the instant 34% competitive upgrade discount as well, using old version serial UPGR4DEY0URSH13LD):

http://www.installaware.com/buydirect.asp

Please contact your InstallAware representative if you already own a version of InstallAware and would like to upgrade, change editions, or extend your maintenance. No matter how old your InstallAware version, we will never cut you off from future upgrades!

He wasn’t in space at first. He was busy smashing through the glass ceiling of the software installer experience:

 

InstallAware Superhero Debut

 

Then, what happened? How did it end up that, just like a disillusioned Mr. Manhattan, the InstallAware Superhero ended up on Mars?

 

InstallAware Space Jockey

 

There’s clues hidden in materials throughout the InstallAware website in helping you find the answer!

 

We’ve reserved a full Studio 15 license with 1 year maintenance for the discoverer of the right solution.

 

Hurry! Confused InstallAware customers are depending on you to solve the puzzle:

This splash screen is disturbing. -Tim U.

For those not in on the joke, it doesn’t inspire confidence – the image is a mechanized system fail. -Jim C.

 

What is really going on? Post your solutions/insights/discussion here:

http://www.installaware.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8935

 

Let the speculation run wild!

InstallAware has revitalized the setup industry, forcing InstallShield to a point of inversion where they find themselves copying our features – instead of worrying about their own copycat clones. The irony is surely not lost on InstallShield, and we present our latest version 15 for their inspiration:

- Native Engine 2.0: Now completely transcending TrustedInstaller access permissions, InstallAware‘s new Native Code Setup Engine seamlessly acquires ownership, modifies, and restores the original ownership of any file or registry key – installing anywhere while preserving maximum security lock-down!

- Driver-less Direct Capture: InstallAware‘s new, proprietary, driver-free repackaging technology immediately produces working setups without having to use clean capture machines – ideal for upgrading any installation to the bullet-proof InstallAware standard, or just low-level system sleuthing!

- Inline Update: Another unique benefit – at least until InstallShield realize its value. Update very large monolithic setups over very low and unstable bandwidth connections – giving you the freedom to build and issue updates to your software from literally anywhere on the globe!

- Capture and Compare: Create and save system snapshots, even from physically different hardware and underlying operating systems. Maintain frequently used capture settings in snapshot profiles. Compare and build setups in record time with InstallAware‘s new, proprietary multithreaded Capture and Compare engine!

- Third Web Update/Bundle Mode: Update your application before it even installs! As long as an Internet connection is available, your clients are guaranteed to receive the latest version of your product. Also ideally suited to creating dynamically updated product bundle offers with your application.

There’s plenty of fresh ideas for InstallShield above, but we’re counting on you to go with the original innovator – InstallAware! Pre-order InstallAware 15 Studio by November 2nd, and save up to $3,831.04 with your unconditional 34% competitive upgrade discount – coupled with a 25% pre-order discount:

http://www.installaware.com/installaware_studio_15.asp

Should you prefer a more affordable product edition, enter the coupon code VERSION15 manually in the URL below (25% off), and choose the competitive upgrade discount (34% off) using competitive upgrade serial 0R1G1N4L1NN0V4T0R on any InstallAware edition you like:

http://www.installaware.com/buydirect.asp

Skip the line! Get the current shipping version of InstallAware 14 as soon as you pre-order, and be the first to receive InstallAware 15 on Friday morning this week right when it ships.

If you own an old InstallAware license, below are your current renewal options (choose your preferred edition):

http://www.installaware.com/upgrade_my_admin_to_15.asp – Studio Admin 15 Upgrade
http://www.installaware.com/upgrade_my_studio_to_15.asp – Studio 15 Upgrade
http://www.installaware.com/upgrade_my_ … _to_15.asp – Developer 15 Upgrade
http://www.installaware.com/upgrade_my_ … _to_15.asp – Express 15 Upgrade

For this week only, edition changes in your product are on us!

Here’s a case study describing the benefits of supporting original innovation: http://www.installaware.com/CodeGearCaseStudy2008.pdf

InstallAware NX 14.11, currently live, adds the following bug fixes:

The ProgressBar control now does not flicker on Windows Vista and newer operating systems.

The IDE failed to add web update dialogs to a project when web updates were being enabled for the first time.