MAKEMSI quickly and reliably creates MSI files in a non-programmatic way\IntroductionChange History

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Change History

MAKEMSI like most products I work on is a work in progress, it is never "perfect". In any case my perfect is probably different from yours. I do the best available in the time I have and then improve where and when possible, for this reason feedback is very important as it tells me where I may need to concentrate some effort.

Most of the MSIs I build using MAKEMSI are for automatic installation under the system account on a "standard controlled environment". Feedback from other people using MAKEMSI in different ways helps me build a better tool.

Please let me know of any bugs or issues and do not assume that someone else has reported it. I have generally fixed all known bugs/issues. The very fact that you are having a problem means that I probably do not know of it! In rare cases I do get snowed under and forget things, in this case please remind me!

Note that I don't put every little change here but mainly the ones that you may notice or you should be aware of. To see what I might be up to between releases this page is updated online at "http://makemsi-manual.dennisbareis.com/changehistory.htm".

If I have any fixes available between releases these will be available at "http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/makemsi/files/". Note that these may be "experimental" or quick fixes so be sure to backup files so that you can restore things if required.

1. In progress (to do soonish... OK, at least I know I definately need to do it!)
   

   • When deleting a scheduled task it is probably best to send a "stop" request to it first (at least by default).

   • English text, in sundry ".mmh" files (mainly "uisample.mmh"), see the "Internationalization" section.

   • Look into smart cabbing.

   • Check out sorting of .chm contents: And a very minor thing I noticed at the MAKEMSI help file: the command list in the contents seems to be alphabetical, but a number of entries starting with 'Registry' stand in between Platform and ProductFind. On closer examination, this is not a bug as such but the ordering of entries in the documentation (which I should improve).

   • Any "flashing" tooltips in the documentation (MAKEMSI and generated) is an IE 7 bug, but is there something I can do about it?

   • At the moment use of anything but "|1" for the CheckBox values ("DialogEntry") will cause unchecked items to become checked when the back button is pressed to return to the dialog.

2. Next Release
   
   • You tell me, feedback please!
     Have you ever looked at a product and said "Wouldn't it be nice if ...", well get on your backside and send an email, make it so!
   • Note that documentation improvements occur almost every release.

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   • Your idea here :-). Most of the code & documentation changes are either made based on my own personal experience or from user forum questions/problems, I get little practical feedback.

3. 10.030 (30 January 2010)
   
   • I think my v09.360 change to the "VbsCa" command created the problem which could cause builds to fail (inline always).
   • Improved the UnzipImage sample to log more and display better error if "iunzip.exe" not found.

4. 09.360 (26 December 2009)
   
   • New "ControlName" parameter on the "DialogEntry" command allows you to "name" controls if you need to refer to them elsewhere.
   • By default the "VbsCa" command will now use "FileMake" to generate the binary script so that the "binary" will no longer change for "insignificant" changes. This makes it much easier to detect "real differences" between msi versions.
   • I have now replaced the code that made use of "DTREG.EXE" so it is no longer installed at all.

5. 09.328 (24 November 2009)
   
   • Added the ".NET Framework Installed?" validation/sample.
   • The base url of all links in the generated html report that pointed into the online MAKEMSI manual incorrectly started with "http://dennisbareis.com/makemsi/" (causing a 404).
   • If you used "MM.CMD" without parameters and there was only one match whose filename contained spaces then the build wouldn't work.
   • I finally got sick of the false AV hits on "DTREG.EXE" (which is only used by experimental "SelfRegImport" command) so its now zipped in a password protected archive to "hide it". If you need it then unzip to install.

6. 09.316 (12 November 2009)
   
   • The "compile" command now supports caching of "MakeCab.EXE" output.
   • A type of "DWORD" on the "Registry" command could fail with ICE70.
   • Setting "UISAMPLE_DISABLE_TYPICAL_SETUP" to "A" would cause the build to fail syntax error.

7. 09.296 (23 October 2009)
   
   • The default method used to persist properties during uninstall in the "Property" command was changed to use permanent (versus unregistered) components as this allows repair of those values.
   • The compile options can now be varied per "compile" command.

8. 09.284 (8 October 2009)
   
   • Added the "64Bit" parameter to the "RegistryRead" command.
   • Added the "RAW" parameter to the "Registry" command.
   • Rather than warn you if you forget to supply "VALUE" on the "MsiFormatted" parameter for "MultiString" types, the code now automatically applies it.
   • An "ICE70" during validation and a 1406 error during install would be generated if you supplied a string starting with "#" (which has special meaning to Windows Installer) to the "Registry" command.
   • As this is my new laptop running 64 bit Vista Ultimate, if anything was to go wrong this is the release it will occur in but I'm pretty confident. Let me know if that was wrong :-)

9. 09.198 (17 July 2009)
   
   • The "FileFind" command could fail with a 2228 error on the "Signature" table when searching for a directory, I think this is because of a change to Windows Installer (it now requires it).

10. 09.155 (2 June 2009)
    
    • Improved my solution to the "HTMLMSITABLE_MSIDIFF_NAME" issue as the one in "09.153" required MSIDIFF to be installed (or some reconfiguration) by default.

11. 09.153 (2 June 2009)
    
    • The "DllCa-C" command would fail if a long (non 8.3) binary key was chosen (for example "SimpleSlashRemoval.dll", "Simple.dll" worked).
    • Updated the "VbsCa" & "VbsCaSetup" commands to support type 38 custom actions (simple inline).
    • Updated the "JsCa" & "JsCaSetup" commands to support type 37 custom actions (simple inline).
    • Removed the hardcoded path from the DEFAULT value for "HTMLMSITABLE_MSIDIFF_NAME" (minor fix for people not installing to "c:").
    • Fixed the "VbscriptBasedService.MM" sample.
    • Adjusted the attribute ("type" parameter etc) handling of all custom actions.
    • Minor enhancement to the "Schedule" command.

12. 09.045 (14 February 2009)
    
    • The "CONDITION_PER_USER" definition was faulty.

13. 08.362 (27 December 2008)
    
    • Fixed the "Integer" parameter of the "DialogEntry" command to work with numbers greater than 32,767.

14. 08.345 (10 December 2008)
    
    • Improved regular expression testing (to pick up pattern syntax errors). This involves changes to the "DialogPreview" & "TableExportToIdt" commands and also in the custom action code generated for handling the "MatchRe" parameter of the "DialogEntry" command.
    • Added "helper" buttons and other minor changes to the "Regular Expression Tester" tool.

15. 08.320 (15 November 2008)
    
    • New "Regular Expression Tester" tool.
    • The use of the "SameLine" parameter on a "DialogEntry" command would cause an "UNKNOWN VARIABLE" error for the variable "PARAMETER".
    • I'd accidently broken the "TryMeWithUserDialog.MM" example in the "08.312" release.

16. 08.312 (7 November 2008)
    
    • Modified the "Insert" parameter of the "Dialog" command so that dialog insertion is optional.
    • New "TryMeConditionDialogs.MM" sample.

17. 08.298 (24 October 2008)
    
    • Updated the IE automation based shortcuts so that they now support property formatting. For testing now support override with environment variable. Fixed bug which required url to end with "/" if there was no page info present.

18. 08.257 (13 September 2008)
    
    • The "DialogEntry" command's transformations were not being executed unless validations were also being performed.
    • Updated the "Folder Attributes - Reapply at Install Time" code to also take care of empty directories.
    • The "MsiSync.VBS" tool will now retry on Windows Installer return codes of 1618.

19. 08.241 (28 August 2008)
    
    • The "Directory" command's "conditional" directory creation support would create the code even if the key's case was different (keys are case sensitive). As this probably only occured in the case of a user error this change probably won't change the outcome but I have now documented error "2756".
    • Moved the definition of validation entries for "MAKEMSI_TABLENAME_CABS" table to the "compile" processing.
    • "VbsScriptTestingStub()" could logs some irrelevant "err" details.

20. 08.232 (19 August 2008)
    
    • The "MsiValFilter" "regular expression" tests could cause validation filtering to fail on some workstations (on any particular machine it would either consistently fail or work). MAKEMSI should now also detect and warn about any filter failure. Also added some more debugging features to the validation process.
    • Many MAKEMSI commands make use of the "GetSeqNumber()" routine which would display an error if the available space was exactly equal to the requested number of sequence numbers.
    • The "CustomAction" column "ExtendedType" is now created by default allowing the new "PatchUninstall" custom action attribute to be used. If you are operating on existing msi files you may need to set the "TABLES_DEFINE.CustomAction.ExtendedType" macro to "N" if it doesn't already contain the column.
    • Minor change to "HookInto.MMH" to fix the bug (#ifdef "macro") reported by Christoph Mockenhaupt (thanks). Found similar issue in "MacroCfg.MMH".
    • Christoph Mockenhaupt improved his "FireWall.MMH" code.

21. 08.209 (27 July 2008)
    
    • Updated "uisample.msi" from the latest Windows Installer 4.5 SDK (previous template was from the 4.5 beta).
    • Thanks to Christoph Mockenhaupt for the "FireWall.MMH" code which adds to the MS Windows FireWall Exception list.
    • Thanks to Lucas Marcel for pointing out the compare bug in the "file version compare code".
    • New "INSTALLER_SDK_DIR" configuration.
    • Minor change to the logging of the "ProductValidation" command (product names on progress dialog).

22. 08.188 (6 July 2008)
    
    • Added these system folder properties to "COMPANY.MMH":
      • CommonFiles64Folder
      • ProgramFiles64Folder
      • System64Folder

23. 08.177 (25 June 2008)
    
    • The "CaDeleteFile()" code would most likely fail unless you had defined "oFS" globally.
    • It is now possible to configure the "WrapInstall" command to wait for a period of time for an async uninstall to complete (for example an NSIS "uninstall.exe").
    • New optional "CaSleep()" routine.
    • The "UpgradeTable" macro can now be told the "@validate" information for the rows being added.

24. 08.148 (27 May 2008)
    
    • Some tools create an "ActionText" table which only allows for short descriptions ("L64" for the "Description" column in my testcase). The "ProductValidation" command would fail in this situation, the text is now configurable with the default probably short enough for all cases.
    • The "TableDelete" command can now delete tables that haven't been predefined.

25. 08.123 (2 May 2008)
    
    • A new "AccessApply" command.
    • Minor change to the "Access" command.
    • The second "EntryCheck" in the VBS created with the "VbsCa" command should have been "ExitCheck".

26. 08.096 (5 April 2008)
    
    • MAKEMSI now performs more validations to work around the Windows Installer bug described in section "A Windows Installer _Streams table key longer than 62 bytes corrupts the database".
    • Updated the 2213 error message which gets displayed when build fails.
    • Added the new "PatchUninstall" custom action attribute, rework required as mechanism changed in recent 4.5 beta 2.

27. 08.066 (6 March 2008)
    
    • Fixed the "[Date] [Time]" string that the "WrapInstall" command places into the "MakeMsiWrapInstall" registry.

28. 08.023 (23 January 2008)
    
    • Fixed a "DirectoryTree" bug which would also have affected the "Files" command (and possibly others). In some situations (long and/or similar directory names), part of the structure could be lost.
    • New "MAKEMSI_MM_SUPPORT_TEXT" environment variable which controls the "support text" inserted by the "MM.CMD" batch file into the "*.dbg.txt" file..
    • Updated the code which determines the default value of the "PLATFORM_SDK_DIR" macro.
    • The "TryMeAddVersionKeywordAndLaunchCondition.MM" sample would fail if none of the "OnlyOn" types generated code.

Older Entries Than Those Above

If you need to see older entries then please have a look at my older change history page.

Please email me any feedback, additional information or corrections. See this page online (look for updates) MAKEMSI© is (C)opyright Dennis Bareis 2003-2008 (All rights reserved). Saturday January 30 2010 at 3:55pm Visit MAKEMSI's Home Page