quoting Antoine Leblond from: http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/05/30/continuing-the-windows-8-vision-with-windows-8-1.aspx "So when you install a new app from the Windows Store, we no longer put that app on your Start screen." When I install my non-Windows Store product from an msi package to a Windows 8.1 system, no shortcuts are installed on the start screen even though I have the "Pin to Windows 8 Start Screen" property set to yes. (does work as expected on Windows 😎 So does Microsoft intend no apps to have shortcuts installed to the Windows 8.1 start screen? BTW: I built my basic msi project with Install Shield 2013 ... View more

In .NET you can use an XML formatted configuration file to make an assembly load a different version of dependent assembly by supplying a binding redirect element. This configuration file can apply to a specific application or machine wide with machine.config http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/twy1dw1e(v=vs.71).aspx The documentation states “Use one tag for each assembly.” I am having a hard time making Install Shield’s “XML File Change” feature create binding redirects for multiple assemblies. There is also a problem with adding a binding redirect to a config file that already has multiple binding redirects (It tends to want to modify all the existing dependentAssembly blocks!). Has anyone figured out how to deal with this problem yet? What did you do? Could you make the XML File Change feature work or did you use a different approach? This clearly is not a new problem: http://community.flexerasoftware.com/search.php?searchid=2019226 ... View more

I am encountering an issue where sometimes Windows 7 64-bit “Programs and Features” will not modify any installations. When you click on a product then click remove you get an error window stating:” Error opening installation log file. Verify that the location specified log file exists and is writable” If you run msiexec directly or initiate maintenance mode from the setup.exe or msi file the uninstall will run normally. If you restart the explorer process or reboot the system you can modify applications through “Program and Features” again. This issue is highly intermittent, even a VMware image starting from the same snapshot run multiple times will sometimes get it but mostly won’t. (I know what you are thinning…it’s not just VMware, I have also had “real” systems in this state) The only bit of reproducibility I can get is when running the installation during Windows 7 software logo toolkit testing. I thought this had to be something “bad” we were doing in our installation, but I have now made a simple one feature, one component install with which I can still reproduce the problem. (Twice after three attempts) I have a case open with Microsoft, which is progressing reasonably well. So far it’s been determined that when explorer is in this state its trying to write the log to the system32 folder! (“Programs and Features” window is a thread from the explorer process) However I am curious has anyone else experienced the same problem? FYI - The installation packages have been built from a basic MSI project using Install Shield 2010 ... View more