WiX Online Meeting #96 Highlights

WiX v3.10.3 update

As promised, here’s this week’s update on WiX v3.10.3:

No change from last week.

We have not received information about a fix or workaround for the GDI+ bug that breaks WinForms managed bootstrapper applications. Rob promises to poke the right people at Microsoft until we know more.

Issue triage

• WiX v4 doesn’t support minor releases #5195 comes from @rseanhall who points out that the version number scheme change we made in WiX v3.10 isn’t yet in WiX v4.0. Rob volunteered to fix that.

• Uninstall using “Apps & Features” setting panel on Windows 10 required administrator privilege #5196 comes from @fbruneteau who describes a new behavior in the Windows 10 Apps and Feature “modern” replacement for Programs & Features which itself replaced Add/Remove Programs, all of which are still, in my mind, called “ARP” because “P&F” sounds silly. Prior to Windows 10, ARP would automatically elevate executables used for uninstallation without prompting for elevation. Apparently, Windows 10 now prompts for elevation. Some might argue this is more correct behavior, though I’d suggest Windows should prompt for elevation only if the executable’s manifest calls for it. In any case, this is Windows behavior, not something Burn or another part of WiX can control, so we closed the issue.

• Create WiX 3.10.2 release on NuGet #5198 is from @jozefizso who requests a NuGet package for WiX v3.10.2. There haven’t been “official” WiX v3.x packages and at the moment, it’s not something we’re planning to add to the WiX v3.x build process. (WiX v4.0 already builds NuGet packages with every build, though they’re not yet uploaded to NuGet.org.)

• Installer Setup Failed with error “0x80070642” #5200 comes from @fbruneteau who reports getting an error repairing a per-user package. As it doesn’t appear to be a WiX bug, we closed the issue with the suggestion to send details to wix-users for support.

• RtfLargeTheme XML “FilesInUseText” Text element contains a stray ‘A’ character in its innertext #5201 is from @lwarren01 who points out that there is a mysterious letter A in one of the WixStdBA themes. There is, though it’s not clear why it would interfere with the status messages being displayed. We took this issue in WiX v3.x.

Pull request review

This week’s pull request was a fairly simple fix of moving code to the right spot to actually have the desired effect. The related bug had the details and @BMurri took care of the fix in both WiX v3.x and v4.0. Great bug report, great pull requests. There’s plenty of low-hanging fruit in the issues tracker for anyone interested in contributing to WiX!