Windows 7 released to manufacturing

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 As some of you may have already heard, Windows 7 has now been released to manufacturing! Read the latest blog post on the Engineering Windows 7 blog. This also means that now you have all the more reason to try the new functionality in Windows Installer 5.0 that is included in Windows 7. Windows Installer provides some key improvements and enables new experiences for application setup developers, ISVs and IT Administrators. Also all features provided with the MSI 4.5 redistributable release are rolled into Windows 7.

You can download the recorded presentation [ video1 , video2 , video3 ] & the power point slide deck to learn more about these Windows Installer features.

Improvements over Windows Vista:

  • Standard actions support for enhanced permissions setting, service configuration and most common UI oriented tasks, eliminating the need for writing custom actions
  • Performance related improvements give you the ability to speed up installation of large packages & patches, and better integration with UAC help provide a good overall end user experience
  • Patching improvements made to support highest version of shared component, and support custom action during patch uninstall

New experiences in Windows 7:

  • Support for installing multiple packages using transaction processing
  • Support to embed a custom UI handler within MSI package, making custom UI easier to integrate
  • Support to create & deploy a single dual mode MSI package capable of being installed both in per-user as well as per-machine context

Please note that the MSDN documentation section " What's new in Windows Installer 5.0 " has been updated accordingly and is available for online viewing. Feel free to post your comments/questions to this blog post.

[Author: Zainab Hakim]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
    August 01, 2009
    Hello Thanks for that information Michael

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2009
    Thanks for Windows Installer 5.0, looking forward to using the features :-) Unfortunately we can't access MSFT Intranet, so the "attached" (linked) video is pretty much useless.

  • Anonymous
    August 05, 2009
    Dear Readers, I have now uploaded the slide deck and presentation to Windows SkyDrive. You can download these from the link provided in the post. Sorry for the inconvenience. Sincerely, Zainab

  • Anonymous
    August 07, 2009
    I don't know if this is the right place for support questions, so if not, please let me know where else I can post this. We have a (minor) problem with our MSI installer on Windows 7; it works fine on XP, 2003, and Vista.  When it uninstalls the app, the All Programs/CompanyName folder is not uninstalled.  Everything under it is uninstalled, but the folder remains. To make it more bizarre, it only happens if the user has looked in that folder.  If the user opens the folder before uninstalling (even in a new login session), the uninstall will leave that CompanyName folder. Any thoughts?  Ideas?  Suggestions? Thanks in advance for any input (including suggestions of where I should be posting this).

  • Anonymous
    August 11, 2009
    Today is was examining problem in Windows Vista computer where Windows Installer was not working at all. After many trys I discovered that C:Windowssystem32 did have empty file named "msiexec" (there was also real msiexec.exe) Bug is that msisserver service is pointed "C:Windowssystem32msiexec /V" should be "C:Windowssystem32msiexec.exe /V" that is why service did not start. How to msiexec file got there? Not sure. maybe it was misconfigured script or exe, of course should not ever happen.

  • Anonymous
    August 11, 2009
    So how you get empty msiexec file? easily with copy paste error. start cmd.exe. try some fancy installation, like msiexec /i fdsafdsa.msi /t plaaplaa then you realize, oo I need run this in admin rights. Then you start cmd with ctrl+shift+enter, it go directly to system32, then you copy&paste your command from other cmd. if you actidentally copy little too much, lets say "C:UsersMeitzi>msiexec /i fdsafdsa.msi /t plaaplaa" and hit enter, voila, you get msiexec file in your system32 caused by ">"