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Makin' a List, Checkin' it Twice: Windows Installer Wishes (Part 1)

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Context

The Windows Installer (MSI) team maintains an alias for Windows Installer Wishes. Generally we view these as feature requests for future versions of the Windows Installer toolset. In an effort to me more transparent with the things customers are asking for, here's an accumulation of Wishes from last month. We welcome and value comments from the larger community (if you so desire).

Makin' a List, Checkin' it Twice ;^)

This last month we got the following Windows Installer Wishes (note: paraphrased):

Support Windows Scripting Components in SelfReg table

Christopher Painter (from https://chrpai.blogspot.com) wished for

The MSDN Topic SelfReg Table indicates that it calls DllRegisterServer on the files in the SelfReg table and lists exclusions such as EXEs.

Unfortunately the SelfRegModules action and SelfReg tables are not capable of registering scriplets even though Regsvr32 properly understands how to use scrobj.dll to process the component. While use of the COM tables is ideal, SelfRegModules should work also.

Christopher Painter's Windows Installer Wish is for SelfRegModules would be more valuable if it understood .WSC files.

Support Custom Actions in Other Scripting Languages

Christopher Painter (from https://chrpai.blogspot.com) wished for

The MSDN Topic Scripts says the two types of script custom actions Windows Installer supports are JScript and VBScript.

Unfortunately ActiveScript is not a supported custom actions script. It would be nice if the customaction table could be authored using a either a generic script type # with the language engine tag in the script or a join to another column in the database specifing the language to be used.

Christopher Painter's Windows Installer Wish is for support of custom actions built with other scripting languages such as PerlScript.

Support More Tables for Patch Uninstall

Microsoft Technical Account Manager wished on behalf of their customer

The MSDN Topic Uninstallable Patches states that if patches add information to a couple of dozen standard tables, the patch will be marked as non-uninstallable.

Unfortunately my customer discovered this after starting to adopt patching for their product and they do have additions to some of these tables. This is going to make for some difficult engineering choices for their product and may mean they will not be able to use patching.

This customer's Windows Installer Wish is for parity in patch uninstall for tables that can addressed with a patch install.

Caveat

Please Note: this does not represent a commitment from the Windows Installer team to implement (or not implement) these Wishes. This simply says we are listening and carefully considering each Wish.

[Author: Robert Flaming]

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified at https://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 09, 2006
    How about being able to recache external transforms rather than just the msi itself? I believe this can be done when using the /v switch with an embedded transform but many business's apply their transforms externally.
  • Anonymous
    March 10, 2006
    An registration ordering mechanism should be considered as part of any change to the SelfReg functionaility.
  • Anonymous
    April 05, 2008
    PingBack from http://copyrightrenewalsblog.info/windows-installer-team-blog-makin-a-list-checkin-it-twice-windows/