{"id":8,"date":"2007-08-31T00:44:08","date_gmt":"2007-08-31T08:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.installaware.com\/blog\/?p=8"},"modified":"2008-03-01T16:55:09","modified_gmt":"2008-03-02T00:55:09","slug":"get-ready-because-were-launching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.installaware.com\/blog\/?p=8","title":{"rendered":"Get ready, because we’re launching."},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a while since the last time we wrote something here, almost 5 months. We have been quite busy working on our products :)During this timeframe, we shipped InstallAware 7<\/a><\/strong>, the latest and greatest version of the industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s premier setup authoring tool; and also a new beta for our exciting WiX IDE<\/strong>, WiXAware 2.0<\/a>. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not all!I believe this lack of posts and activity<\/strong> on our blog has been really worth it<\/strong>, because not only did we improve our products and launched two new major versions<\/strong>, but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re now also announcing support for the upcoming version 4.5 of the Windows Installer<\/strong> engine! This makes us the first installation vendor<\/strong> to support Windows Installer 4.5<\/strong>, the same way we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been the first to support SQL Server 2005, .NET 3, as well as .NET 2.0<\/strong>. Unlike some other vendors (you know who you are), we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re making these updates available free for everyone<\/strong> just days after Microsoft publishes them \ud83d\ude09 So we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be releasing the free update for Windows Installer 4.5 as soon as a Go-Live license from Microsoft<\/strong> for it becomes available.<\/p>\n

We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve already built the Windows Installer 4.5 runtime for InstallAware\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Application Runtimes designer<\/strong>, as well as a new plug-in<\/strong> for leveraging new Windows Installer 4.5 functionality. As soon as Microsoft lets vendors redistribute the new Windows Installer 4.5 runtime, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be only a few hours from taking advantage of all its new features, and start exploiting the much anticipated Chained Transactional Installs!So, what are Chained Transactional Installs<\/strong>? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty self explanatory, really. You can now officially chain multiple MSI installations<\/strong> one after the other, as part of a single atomic operation. If there is an error in one of the chained installs, or the end-user cancels the installation someplace in between, the entire transaction can be rolled back in a single operation, returning the computer to the same state it was in before the entire transactioned installs began. Of course, if everything is kosher, just commit the changes normally, and all changes made to the system are finalized in a single pass.<\/p>\n

\"MSI<\/a><\/p>\n

InstallAware has always provided the most advanced bootstrapper technology of the Windows Installer industry<\/strong>, for instance you could already chain multiple MSI installs as part of a larger setup, monitor and natively display their progress in your master setup dialogs, and so on ever since our first release almost 4 years ago. And now, with the engine level fortifications Microsoft has made to Windows Installer 4.5, InstallAware<\/strong> further enhances the reliability and resiliency<\/strong> of chained MSI installations. The good news<\/strong> is you do not<\/strong> have to make any major changes<\/strong> to your existing setups<\/strong>! Just add two lines of MSIcode leveraging the new MSI Transaction plug-in<\/strong>, creating transactioned installation blocks around your runtimes and\/or any other MSI files that you are installing, and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re set<\/strong>!There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no need to worry about compatibility issues<\/strong> as packages and patches authored by previous MSI versions are fully supported by the MSI 4.5 engine. Also, packages targeting MSI 4.5 contain some new tables and actions for the new features, but when you run an MSI 4.5 package on an older engine, such as MSI 3.0, everything will still work smoothly by ignoring the new tables\/actions. Of course, any new features and functionality based on MSI 4.5 won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work, but your setups will still install properly without throwing unwanted errors. Our new MSI Transaction plug-in won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fail either when MSI 4.5 is not available<\/strong>, instead it returns a descriptive error code back to your MSIcode script, letting you handle the condition as you see fit (for instance, by forcing the installation of the new Windows Installer engine, or by discarding transaction support).I was quite amazed by the speed improvements during installation. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s much faster and much more stable, without strange failures during installs and unexplained messages even at this beta stage. Just imagine what the RTM version will be like, if the beta \u00e2\u20ac\u0153flies\u00e2\u20ac\u009d like this!Currently this beta version of the MSI 4.5 engine runs on most recent versions of Windows, starting with Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2003 SP1<\/strong>, and of course including Windows Vista. While MSI 4.0 was not supported on older platforms, Microsoft is now making this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153down-level\u00e2\u20ac\u009d support available for MSI 4.5, a welcome improvement. MSI 4.5 will be embedded into Windows Server 2008 (Codename Longhorn Server), and it is planned to be included in Windows Vista SP1 as well.<\/p>\n

MSI 4.5 will be available as a stand-alone update from the Microsoft Download pages. If you want to give it a try, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to register at Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Connect page<\/a>, where the beta is available. After completing the registration process you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be able to download any necessary files MSI 4.5 needs to install, as well as updated documentation. Please note that we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t redistribute runtime files during their beta stage<\/strong> because this is prohibited by Microsoft, but if you already have the MSI 4.5 runtimes, just drop us an email and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll make our new runtime installer package and the new MSI Transaction plug-in available for you, free of charge \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"Windows<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, InstallAware\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new Windows Installer 4.5 runtime<\/strong> takes care of installing this update for you in just a single click. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually a fairly complex process on Windows Vista. Vista features a new update mechanism, called the Windows Update Stand-Alone installer, along with a new kind of system update file format. Updates are no longer served as independent EXE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that we were used to working with on the down-level platforms. The bug with the Windows Update Stand-Alone installer is MSI 4.5 cannot be silently installed<\/strong>, complicating the delivery process and ruining the end-user experience. A hot fix for this bug must be installed beforehand (unfortunately, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not automatically pushed to client machines through Windows Update). The good news is, our new Windows Installer 4.5 one-click runtime install correctly handles this case<\/strong> and installs this hot fix when necessarySo you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have unsurpassed reliability and deliver your end-users with the best installation experience, in the good InstallAware tradition.Once again we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re bringing you the latest technologies, beating any other vendor to it!Keep watching this space as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have more helpful tips, how-to guides, sample scripts and other time saving tricks<\/strong> posted here regularly (no matter how aggressive our product release schedule is). I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m here to make your time spent with InstallAware more fun and enjoyable!<\/p>\n

Panagiotis Kefalidis
\nInstallAware CCP \u00e2\u20ac\u201c DataFire Software, Greece<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a while since the last time we wrote something here, almost 5 months. We have been quite busy working on our products :)During this timeframe, we shipped InstallAware 7, the latest and greatest version of the industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s premier setup authoring tool; and also a new beta for our exciting WiX IDE, WiXAware 2.0. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Get ready, because we’re launching.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ia-insider","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.installaware.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.installaware.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.installaware.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.installaware.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.installaware.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.installaware.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":366,"href":"https:\/\/www.installaware.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.installaware.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.installaware.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.installaware.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}