EMCO MSI Package Builder - What's New in Version 4.4

Features below were firstly introduced or significantly improved in this release:

• Added preview of System Folders locations on the Machine where MSI Package Builder is running

The application allows you to specify custom actions that should be executed by an MSI package when its installation and/or uninstallation will be completed. On the Run Actions tab of the Wizard you can enter a path to an executable file or a batch script located on a PC after an MSI installation, in order to execute it. You can also specify an URL to open it in browser or path to files in order to open them by default viewers registered in a system.

MSI generation options were extended to allow you not only to specify an Upgrade GUID, but also to specify a Product GUID manually. Both GUIDs are preserved and associated with MSI projects, so every time you generate MSI for a particular project, Upgrade GUID and Product GUID are stay the same, but if you like, you can override them manually.

Features below were firstly introduced or significantly improved in this release:

• Introduced features to restart a service during an MSI package installation and/or uninstallation
• Introduced features that allow to delete default values of registry keys in scope of installation created manually or using the Live Monitoring technology

Features below were firstly introduced or significantly improved in this release:

• Added support of Microsoft Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 operating systems
• Slightly increased the MSI package generation process speed

Features below were firstly introduced or significantly improved in this release:

• Introduced an option to specify target operating systems supported by a created MSI package
• Introduced a check for free space availability before MSI generation start
• Improved MSI generation process to reduce a disk space required to build an MSI package
• Improved folders permissions management in the Live Monitoring feature

When you generate MSI package on the Upgrade tab of the Create MSI Package dialog, now you can define if the package is an upgrade for another installation. If created MSI package is an upgrade, you have to specify an Upgrade GUID that should be the same, as GUID of upgraded MSI installation. In this case during installation MSI upgrade package will update original installation entry on computer instead of creating the new entry that's happen during the first time installation.

Missing links may appear in the installation project on the preparation phase when captured modified files are copied to the application's projects storage. If the application detects that file was modified during monitoring, but it can't be copied to the projects storage because it's missing at a time of project preparation or is locked, it's marked in the project as missing link.

To resolve the problem with missing links you can now use Repair Missing File Links action, available for installation. As the result application tries to copy all files, marked as missing links, from original location (captured during monitoring) to projects storage. So now if you get any missing links in project, you can restore missing files in original location or resolve problem with access permissions or locks and then perform Repair Missing File Links action.

Features below were firstly introduced or significantly improved in this release:

• Improved MSI decompilation process to extract and preserve general MSI information from decompiled MSI package, such as installation version and manufacturer.

The Choose Processes to Filter dialog has been reworked to reduce a number of mistakes caused by wrong filter settings. Now by default this dialog displays only active applications which activity can be filtered out from capturing. To get an access to a list of running processes and apply filters for them you can switch the dialog to the advanced mode. In the advanced mode you can filter out any active process, including a system process. But you need to note that in many cases system processes are responsible for a performing particular installation actions. For example, Windows Explorer handles shortcuts creation and if this process will be filtered out, the produced MSI package will become incomplete. So in typical cases it's recommended to apply filters for applications only.

Features below were firstly introduced or significantly improved in this release:

• Improved representation of the active processes on the Choose Processes to Filter dialog to include process ID, icon and description.

Features below were firstly introduced or significantly improved in this release:

• Introduced codepage validation for MSI language and MSI properties

The feature that allows to get a list of running processes before starting of Live Monitoring and choose unwanted to filter them out was improved in this version. Now processes that were added before to a list of processes filters are highlighted. So you know what processes will be filtered by default. Also you can add any process to a permanent list of processes filters, so it will be excluded by default every time when make monitoring.

Standard MSI packages can include up to 65535 file system items. To workaround this limitation MSI package should store all resources over this limit in external CAB files. Starting from this version the application automatically create one or multiple CAB files for MSI package if the total number of file system items is over 65535.

Features below were firstly introduced or significantly improved in this release:

• Improved logging of MSI package generation process

Now before starting of the capturing process, using the Live Monitoring technology, you can select processes which changes should be filtered out from monitoring results. In opposite to processes filter configuration, defined in application preferences, you can apply custom set of filters for every capturing by selecting required items from the list of currently running processes. This feature simplifies filtering out of unwanted changes, because you get a list of active processes and can decide which of them have no relation to capturing activity and can be filtered.

Specification of monitoring and uninstall filters becomes more flexible with an ability to use regular expressions. Now you can use just one filter value with regular expression to cover multiple entries. Powerful regular expressions language allows to create advanced configurations with low efforts. If you are not familiar with regular expressions, you can use simpler approach, based on wildcards, for configuring filters that cover multiple entries. For specification of file system and processes filters you can use wildcard symbols that used in file system search.

Features below were firstly introduced or significantly improved in this release:

• Introduced validation of filter values
• Improved performance of MSI package generation