Advanced Installer 8.1 Release Notes

On March 31st, 2011 Caphyon Ltd. is proud to announce the release of Advanced Installer 8.1 in Free, Professional, Enterprise and Architect editions. This release is available for download on the Advanced Installer website.

The 8.1 release enriches Advanced Installer's theme support with Theme Variations. Alternative backgrounds, colors, frames and UI elements provided for each built-in theme offer countless stylistic variations able to tweak your favorite design to perfection.

Quickly upgrade your existing Visual Studio 2010 InstallShield LE installer projects to Advanced Installer using the newly available import wizard. Improve your installer team collaboration by documenting every intricate detail of your projects with project notes.

Also new is the support for Search and Replace in text files, complementing the existing ability to insert, replace and remove elements and attributes in XML files.

New features
  • Enhanced Theme Variations
  • Import InstallShield LE Projects
  • XML File Search
  • Project Notes
  • Selecting and adding pre-built installer dialogs in Freeware edition
  • Text files search and replace operations
  • Search INI files in any folder
  • Register Merge Modules with Visual Studio and Advanced Installer
  • New "Launch File or Open URL Using 64-bit Launcher" Custom Action
  • New "Call function from standard 64-bit dll" custom action
  • Detect driver platform type and support 32/64bit drivers in the same package
  • Import Custom Tables and User Interface Tables from third-party MSI installers
  • Ability to create path variables specific for projects or builds from projects
  • Adobe Reader X predefined Prerequisite and launch condition
  • XNA 4.0 prerequisite and launch condition
  • Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 launch conditions
  • Command line option for adding a feature
  • Command line option for adding a path variable
  • Command line option for deleting a path variable
  • Command line option for importing path variables
  • Customer Experience Improvement Program
Enhancements
  • Improved overall performance by optimizing load time in Files, Folders and Organization views
  • Decreased package build times by using IDT files
  • Promoted WiX project import to Freeware edition
  • Promoted Inno Setup import to Freeware edition
  • Promoted NSIS import to Freeware edition
  • Promoted Visual Studio Setup import to Freeware edition
  • Import repackaged installers into existing Advanced Installer projects
  • Microsoft Office 2010 launch conditions in Office Add-In wizard
  • Register Advanced Installer under Network Services or Local System accounts
  • JRE 1.6 support for IBM machines
  • Ability to move multiple files into a new component
  • Ability to specify target product versions for updates
  • Allow deletion of empty components in Organization Page
  • "NEW" option for various picker dialogs
  • Share server folder option in Client/Server application wizard
  • Build events can now be moved between Post and Pre build events
  • Temporarily disable build events from executing
  • Autofill parameters fields for predefined build events
  • Select specific Windows versions for prerequisite Windows launch conditions
  • Bootstrapper option for using current user locale language in multilingual packages
  • Display a language name in the language it represents in bootstrapper's language selection dialog
  • Specify parent feature when adding Merge Modules from command line
  • File version detection now supports only EXE, DLL and OCX files in Update Configuration projects
  • Option to specify whether the Update packages will be deleted after installation
  • Show progress while loading and saving large projects
  • Select the install location for more assemblies at once
  • Override Path Variable command line option
  • Import a key with its full path from system registry
  • Automatically use old version language when upgrading a multilingual installer
  • Automatically delete an empty "PublicKeyToken" attribute for an .NET assembly
  • Updated error message when a synchronized folder source is missing
  • Option to change the output folder for SetPackageName command
  • Option for hiding already installed prerequisites
  • Improved error message when importing invalid INI files
  • Updated BrowseForFile custom action to return the parent directory and file name
  • Use actual prerequisite URL in new project wizards
  • Flicker free painting of the Enhanced User Interface styled radio and check boxes
  • Removed dialog "Visible" attribute from properties list
  • Use of correct MSI schema version when importing a MSI
  • AI_ResolveKnownFolders will now properly resolve the CommonDocumnts path on Windows XP
  • Improved ExitDialog maintenance message
  • Support redirection for URLs in prerequisites
  • Do not allow a minimum version higher than the maximum version for Java products
  • Avoid the duration being lesser than or equal to the repeat period for a scheduled task
  • Condition support for folder sharing
  • Improved Files In Use detection when using Enhanced User Interface
  • Prerequisite name in "PrerequisiteDlg" is not overwritten anymore by the feature name from the Organization Page
Bug fixes
  • Caption and Description for 64-bit CPL applets were not correctly localized
  • The initial focus was not set correctly if a control that supports receiving the focus was first selected
  • Changes on SetupTypeDlg command link buttons were not saved when changing from Azure theme
  • Error message in Table Editor when a chained package was not found
  • A global prerequisite with its command line parameters set to an environment variable was not resolved correctly if the specified environment variable was not found on the machine
  • An error was returned on Windows XP when uninstalling a package from Control Panel using Enhanced User Interface
  • Device Root view from Windows Mobile Project was not correctly refreshed
  • Application crash when generating button image-lists from bad icons
  • Exception in Table Editor when Digital Signature was enabled
  • "Do not delete extracted files" option was not working when the installation was canceled while using Enhanced User Interface
  • The Progress bar was not rendered correctly on Spring Theme in Java and Professional Projects
  • Error loading ExitDlg on Spring theme
  • In some cases the license wizard was not displayed when the license file was corrupted
  • Configurable parameters information was not imported during a Merge Module import
  • Incompatible dialog was added from Repository to the project even if the prompt message said that it cannot be added
  • "Single Instance" option was not working when "Hide settings" was enabled for Java Products
  • Folder removal operations were imported twice
  • Control event was duplicated if the event was modified
  • Crash when using "Go To Definition" context menu option from the reference pane
  • Install button on ResumeDlg did not work after changing themes
  • Deleting a prerequisite from a project created with an older version of Advanced Installer generated a build error
  • SetProgress with attribute text was not supported on Enhanced User Interface
  • The component for ExtRegDlg remained if the dialog was deleted
  • Serial Validations modifications were not saved
  • Radio buttons and check boxes background were not correctly painted while using Enhanced User Interface
  • Add or Remove Features was not working on MaintenanceTypeDlg while using Azure Theme
  • Projects with UserRegistration were not converted correctly
  • The tool-tip for mixed 32/64bit package type displayed that an Enterprise license was required
  • Content search crash on WinCE Projects
  • ICE20 ListBox table was required for "Files in Use" dialog
  • Add a Merge Module command line option was not working
  • Exception in Table Editor context menu for Merge Module Projects
  • Build failed when having Merge Modules in multilingual Mixed 32/64bit package with option "Create only a multilingual package" enabled
  • AIControlEvents property was visible in property picker
  • Long wait time before launching the installation once the files were extracted
  • The InstanceId property could not be removed after creating and deleting multiple instances
  • The feature combobox for trial periods under the Licensing Page was enabled and visible on Professional projects
  • Resources from Visual Studio Import were not displayed in Files and Folders view
  • Updater crashed while trying to install an update that depended on another update detected as installed
  • Advanced Installer froze while importing an invalid .vdproj file in Visual Studio Setup Project
  • The project was not checked for modifications if a folder was copy/pasted
  • "Ok" message from "Check for updates" dialog did not use upper case letters
  • Prerequisites were displayed in Build Content tab for an AppV build
  • The feature properties were reset when moving the feature up or down in the tree
  • Hidden properties were not correctly set
  • "Force Installation of this prerequisites" did not work properly for feature-based prerequisites
  • The File Association dialog disappeared from the dialog chain when changing themes in Professional project
  • Unsaved modifications were lost if the Recent Project open option was used
  • A Pseudo-Formatted prerequisite display name was not resolved for feature-based prerequisites and error message 4154 was displayed
  • Crash if the Theme was changed after adding a temporary file in the same folder of the Theme's resources
  • JAR.EXE was not discovered correctly when using the import Eclipse wizard
  • References were not displayed for User Accounts in the Scheduled task table
  • The default text style on Graphite SpawnDlg was not DlgFont8
  • User defined extended searches were displayed in the property picker
  • Enhanced User Interface did not escape correctly the last backslash from a property
  • Condition for AI_VALID_SERIAL was not correct
  • Error messages were shown when building Advanced Installer projects from the command line