So I have been tackling a build problem with some humongous deployment builds in Visual Studio.  In reality, VS Deployment Projects are not ideal for even slightly sophisticated MSI installers; but we’ve gone far enough down this path that we can’t make the switch at the moment.  So please choose something with more control like the Microsoft-sponsored open-source project WiX or a well-established, paid product like InstallShield.

So the error I kept getting was "Not enough storage is available to complete this operation" and it would list some file (not the same every time).  It appears the error means the build process ran out of virtual memory or something.  So I found something interesting about default limit of 2 GB for any Windows process and how to raise that limit.  That process is discussed in this post:  http://murrayon.net/2007/12/building-monster-vs-2005-or-2008.html

I was trying to rename a product’s display name found in its ARP (Add/Remove Programs) entry.  There is a registry key that lists just about every product installed on your machine:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Most (if not all) MSI-installed products have an entry under this key that is the ProductCode GUID.  Every product under this key seems to have a DisplayName value, some of which you can modify and it will show the change in ARP.  However, it appeared any product installed via MSI did not work this way.  So I went registry hunting for any other entries the MSI installers might create.  I found the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer

This key has many helpful sub-keys (including Assemblies, Components, Features, Patches, Products, and UpgradeCodes); the Products sub-key is the most important to me at the moment.  Under this sub-key there are many entries (not as many as the first location I mentioned; these appear to MSI only products) that appear to be GUIDs without hyphens and braces.  However, the key that represented the product I was interested in didn’t match the ProductCode I had.  But in one of the values, there was a PackageCode that was indeed the correct package GUID (different than ProductCode) and the ProductName matched as well.  Turns out for MSI-installed products I could change this ProductName value and it would make the change to its ARP entry.

One of my co-workers, in trying to find the install location of Microsoft Word, found a cool little registry tree.  Here is the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Applications

Underneath this key, there are keys named Winword.exe, EXCEL.EXE, Outlook.EXE, MSACCESS.EXE, POWERPNT.EXE, explorer.exe, iexplore.exe, AcroRD32.exe, iTunes.exe, javaw.exe, and so on.  It appears many of the big companies use this area to put information about how to do certain commands for a product from a shell (like open, edit, print, etc.).

My next post will be about another section under SOFTWARE\Classes that I discovered.

I ran into a problem with trying to spawn off a process to launch an MSIExec.exe command from C#.  I wanted to launch the process and then wait for it to finish before proceeding; however,  it was always returned immediately before the install or uninstall was really finished.  I confirmed this behavior with this blog entry:  http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/2005/11/15/493236.aspx

The author suggests "start /wait" which works from the command line or a batch file.  I did verify it works launching a batch file or two from C#, but I preferred to keep in C# as much as possible.  Also, I was trying to accomplish a silent background process running the MSIExec commands.  However, C# can’t just start a process calling "start," which is an internal command to the Command Prompt I guess.

Someone reminded me on a message board that you can start a process using CMD.exe, calling "start" like this:

ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo(
    "cmd.exe",
    string.Format("/c start /MIN /wait msiexec.exe /x {0} /quiet", guid));
startInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;

Process process = Process.Start(startInfo);
process.WaitForExit();

So I won’t stray from programming entries very often on this blog unless there is something really important I feel needs to be said.

I, for one, am tired of the Michael Moore documentaries that do nothing but complain about how crappy our nation is.  I also am not a fan of Al Gore’s biased misrepresentation of the facts about Global Warming and his claims that the whole scientific community is behind him; I personally think he doesn’t care about Global Warming all that much and just loves all this attention and wealth that he is accumulating.  But that is a discussion for another time and place…

Well, to keep this brief, there is a new documentary coming out in movie theaters around the nation tomorrow by Ben Stein.  It is called Expelled, and it is an investigative documentary around the systematic persecution by "Big Science" against anyone who questions the theory of Darwinism and proposes the idea that there might have been Intelligent Design.  The movie is a campaign to convince "Big Science" of their close-mindedness, and I support this movement and hope it succeeds.

Here are some links if you are interested further:

• Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGCxbhGaVfE
• Movie Theater Locater:  http://www.expelledthemovie.com/theaterap.php
• 2 Official Web Sites:
  • http://www.getexpelled.com/
  • http://www.expelledthemovie.com/

Ok, back to programming now!