12.7 has broken MS SignTool.exe support

[Daniel]

Hello Glen,

As my colleague already told you, you must have the Windows SDK installed on your build machine. This is a condition for our dual sign support. On Windows 7 dual signing requires you to have the KB2949927 Windows updates installed along with the Windows SDK v8.0 or newer.

So, please install the SDK on your Windows 7 build machine and then test the setup build again. It is not enough to manually copy the SignTool.exe from v8 SDK, you should install the SDK on your machine. The SignTool.exe has other system dependencies which should be installed using the SDK installation setup.

Thank you for your understanding.

All the best,
Daniel

[GlenT]

As my colleague already told you, you must have the Windows SDK installed on your build machine. This is a condition for our dual sign support.

Pardon my impatience, but your colleague did not say that I HAD TO INSTALL the SDK to get this to work. He asked if I had installed the SDK and I replied 'no'. The only mention of the requirement to have the SDK INSTALLED is near the bottom of you blog post, which I missed the first time that I read it. It would have saved us both a lot of time if this had been reported up front with the 12.7 release notes.

For those of us who are not using MS tools for code development, it would be helpful to know which exact files are required by SignTool.exe in order to perform its functions. Remember, that previous versions of SignTool.exe have been free standing files. In addition, it could be expected that a properly written tool like this, would report if it were missing a required DLL -- or had more useful runtime error reporting -- but of course that is a Microsoft issue. I thought that I had copied the required DLLs (as mentioned previously).

In any case, it means that I have to have a gig of SDK crap installed on my production machine, just so that I can use this one tool.

The situation is not helped by the fact that a) your embedded SignTool does not work (and has never worked for us). Our previous experience with ISX 12 was that their embedded version of SignTool.exe did everything that we need and worked transparently.

The other issue is that you have recently removed the detailed runtime AI build info that used to report code signing activity and now does not.

We are not experts in application packaging and installer building. That is why we chose your tool over more comprehensive solutions.

[Daniel]

Hello Glen,

Pardon my impatience, but your colleague did not say that I HAD TO INSTALL the SDK to get this to work. He asked if I had installed the SDK and I replied 'no'. The only mention of the requirement to have the SDK INSTALLED is near the bottom of you blog post, which I missed the first time that I read it. It would have saved us both a lot of time if this had been reported up front with the 12.7 release notes.

We apologize for this. Indeed, we should have emphasized more the importance of the SDK INSTALLED requirement.

For those of us who are not using MS tools for code development, it would be helpful to know which exact files are required by SignTool.exe in order to perform its functions. Remember, that previous versions of SignTool.exe have been free standing files. In addition, it could be expected that a properly written tool like this, would report if it were missing a required DLL -- or had more useful runtime error reporting -- but of course that is a Microsoft issue. I thought that I had copied the required DLLs (as mentioned previously).

Unfortunately, we are not aware neither about an exact list of the SignTool.exe dependencies, nor about how they can be manually installed. Thank you for your understanding.

The situation is not helped by the fact that a) your embedded SignTool does not work (and has never worked for us). Our previous experience with ISX 12 was that their embedded version of SignTool.exe did everything that we need and worked transparently.

Indeed, our internal Digisign.exe signing tool still has some flaws. We have on our TODO list lots of improvements toward a powerful Digisign.exe internal tool.

The other issue is that you have recently removed the detailed runtime AI build info that used to report code signing activity and now does not.

I'm not sure I fully understand to what build info are you exactly referring? Could you please attach 2 screenshots here (old and new info) so we can see what do you mean?

All the best,
Daniel

[GlenT]

Previous versions of AI used to display two progress bars, one with the overall build progress, and the other with the detailed file-by-file and current operation progress. It is sometimes helpful to know what operation AI is currently performing, and what file it is currently being accessed when it gets stuck on something.

[Daniel]

Hello Glen,

I've talked with our development team about the build details level and it seems they already implemented an improvement which will display the current action info at build time. This improvement will be available starting with our next version of Advanced Installer (12.8).

All the best,
Daniel

[Daniel]

Hello Glen,

As an addendum, I want to mention that is not quite necessary to install the whole Windows SDK to use the "SignTool.exe". You could install just the "Windows Software Development Kit" feature of the SDK installation setup. You can leave the rest of the features unchecked if you don't need them installed on your computer. However, the "Windows Software Development Kit" feature will still require a significant space on your local disk.

Please check the attached screenshot.

SDK.jpg (95.57 KiB) Viewed 6723 times

I'm not sure how useful this will be for you, but I thought to mention.

All the best,
Daniel

[GlenT]

Yes, after some trial and error, I had found that option was the one that installed the signtool.exe. On my machine, that is still a 0.99 Gig install (according to the Win7 Programs and Features dialog).

[GlenT]

I've talked with our development team about the build details level and it seems they already implemented an improvement which will display the current action info at build time. This improvement will be available starting with our next version of Advanced Installer (12.8).

Thank you for adding the build-time file details back into the GUI in 12.8.

[Daniel]

You're always welcome Glen.

All the best,
Daniel