Installing Services with Visual Studio

I've complained many times how I dislike VDPROJ and in one particular instance I blogged about how VDPROJ doesn't expose the built-in Service Control Manager patterns that Windows Installer provides.

I dislike VDPROJ because it exposes so little of Windows Installer and encourages anti patterns at worst or extensive post-build manipulation of the MSM/MSI package at best.

However I realize that you might already be committed to VDPROJ so I thought I would point out that Phil Wilson ( Windows Installer MVP ) posted a sample C# solution that is a command line tool for defining a service in a Windows Installer as a post build step.

Frankly, I still dislike VDPROJ. However, if your going to use it, this sure beats using an Installer class custom action to register the service. Better would be if Visual Studio would just dump VDPROJ and replace it with a full blown WiX IDE WixAware maybe?

Welcoming Tanuj Mathur to MSIProvider

It's been a month or so since I unveiled the MSIProvider project on CodePlex. Frankly some of the code to be implemented is a little above my .NET skills. I'm sure I could get it done at the cost of added time but my free time has been really consumed by events in my personal life.

Fortunately OSS allows people from all over the world to collaborate on projects and Tanuj Mathur has graciously accepted the role of team lead on the MSIProvider project. It is clear from talking with him that he has C#/.NET skills that vastly exceed mine and more importantly he has some very lofty goals that go beyond the scope of this project that will be assisted by completing this project.

I will remain the administrative lead for the project, but I look forward to following Tanuj's technical direction and hope to be reporting great progress in the months to come.

More Change, Change, Change

It's been nine long months since we found out that my loving wife Cheryl had cancer. Last week she had her first CT scan after her treatments and the results were very positive. There is no sign of cancer at this time. Let's pray that it stays that way!

Ever since we moved from Houston to Austin we have been leasing out our old home in The Woodlands to a wonderful family from upstate New York and renting our house here from a really slimy property management company. This was meant to be a 1 year only temporary arrangement while we figured out if we like Austin or not. Cheryl was in the middle of treatment when the one year milestone came up, so it turned into more of an 18mos engagement. Either way last week we pulled the trigger and signed a contract to purchase a new spec house being built in Cedar Park near US 183 and SH45. We really like Austin and it's awesome to be moving on from cancer and setting down roots . Closing will be at some point in March.

Did I mention that the house has structured wiring to 7 rooms and FTTP service from AT&T. Gotta keep my XBOX 360 well connected to Video Marketplace after all! :-)




Lennar - O'Connor 5/3.5/2 3004 Sq/Ft