Jul

21

Windows Installer 4.5

Filed Under Microsoft 

Microsoft Windows Installer is a component of the Windows operating system.

Windows Installer provides a standard foundation for installing and uninstalling software. Software manufacturers can create the setup of their products to use Windows Installer to help make software installation, maintenance, and uninstallation straightforward and easy.

Windows Installer 4.5 is now available as a redistributable system component for the following operating systems:

# Windows Server 2008, 32-bit editions
# Windows Server 2008, 64-bit editions
# Windows Server 2008, Itanium-based editions
# Windows Vista
# Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1)
# Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)
# Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3)
# Windows Server 2003 SP1
# Windows Server SP2

This post describes all the new and improved features of Windows Installer 4.5.

Windows Installer 4.5 is a minor update to Windows Installer 4.0. Windows Installer 4.0 was released in November 2006. Windows Installer 4.5 contains new and improved features and addresses some issues in Windows Installer 4.0. All the packages and updates that you can apply to Windows Installer 4.0, to Windows Installer 3.x, and to Windows Installer 2.0 are fully supported in Windows Installer 4.5.

New and improved features in Windows Installer 4.5:

The following new and improved features have been implemented in Windows Installer 4.5.
# Multiple package transaction

In a multiple package transaction, you can create a single transaction from multiple packages. In a multiple package transaction, a chainer is used to dynamically include packages in the transaction. If one or more of the packages do not install as expected, you can roll back the installation.

# Embedded UI handler

You can embed a custom user interface (UI) handler in the Windows Installer package. This makes a custom UI easier to integrate. You can also invoke an embedded UI handler from the Add or Remove Programs item in Control Panel. Or, you can invoke an embedded UI handler during a Windows Installer repair process.

# Embedded chainer

You can use the embedded chainer to add packages to a multiple package transaction. You can use an embedded chainer to enable installation events across multiple packages. For example, you can enable install-on-demand events, repair events, and uninstall events across multiple packages.

#Update supersedence resiliency

This feature lets you correct for changes in the FeatureComponent table during supersedence.

# Shared component patching resiliency during uninstall

This feature makes sure that the most recent version of a component is available to all products.

# Custom action execution on update uninstall

This feature lets an update add or change a custom action so that the custom action is called when an update is uninstalled.

Download the installer for all versions of Windows here:

Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributable package

Enjoy!

Marc Liron

 

 

 

 

Kind Regards

Marc Liron
Microsoft MVP
www.marcliron.com

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