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Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
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|
| Windows Installer | |
|---|---|
 Help screen of Windows Installer 5.0 running on Windows 11 | |
| Developer | Microsoft |
| Release | 31 August 1999 |
| Final release | 5.0
/ 22 July 2009[1] |
| Operating system | Windows 95 or later |
| Platform | IA-32, x86-64, ARM32, ARM64, Itanium |
| Included with | Windows 2000 or later |
| Predecessor | Microsoft ACME Setup |
| Type | Installer |
| License | Freeware |
| Website | learn |
| Windows Installer Package[2] | |
|---|---|
| Filename extension |
.msi, .msp |
| Internet media type |
application/x-ole-storage |
| Developed by | Microsoft |
| Type of format | Archive |
| Container for | Installation information and an optional .cab file payload |
| Extended from | COM Structured Storage |
| Open format? | No |
Windows Installer (msiexec.exe, formerly named Microsoft Installer,[3] codename Darwin)[4][5] is a software component and application programming interface (API) of Microsoft Windows, used to install, maintain, and remove software.[6] The installing information, and optionally the related files, are packaged in installation packages, loosely relational databases structured as COM Structured Storages and commonly known as "MSI files", from their default filename extensions. The packages with the file extensions mst contain Windows Installer "Transformation Scripts", those with the msm extensions contain "Merge Modules" and the file extension pcp is used for "Patch Creation Properties".[7] Windows Installer contains significant changes from its predecessor, Setup API. New features include a graphical user interface (GUI) framework and automatic generation of the uninstallation sequence. Windows Installer is positioned as an alternative to stand-alone executable installer frameworks such as older versions of InstallShield and Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS).
Before the introduction of Windows Installer, the Windows Setup API can be used in Windows 3.x and Windows 9x. The Setup API can do file copy, as well as INI file or Windows Registry update. Since Windows 2000, use Windows Installer to install application is recommended; Setup API is still used for install device drivers.[8]
Before the introduction of Microsoft Store (then named Windows Store), Microsoft encouraged third parties to use Windows Installer as the basis for installation frameworks, so that they synchronize correctly with other installers and keep the internal database of installed products consistent. Important features such as rollback and versioning depend on a consistent internal database for reliable operation. Furthermore, Windows Installer facilitates the principle of least privilege by performing software installations by proxy for unprivileged users.
A package describes the installation of one or more full products and is universally identified by a GUID. A product is made up of components, grouped into features. Windows Installer does not handle dependencies between products.
A single, installed, working program (or set of programs) is a product. A product is identified by a unique GUID (the ProductCode property) providing an authoritative identity throughout the world. The GUID, in combination with the version number (ProductVersion property), allows for release management of the product's files and registry keys.
A package includes the package logic and other metadata that relates to how the package executes when running. For example, changing an EXE file in the product may require the ProductCode or ProductVersion to be changed for the release management. However, merely changing or adding a launch condition (with the product remaining exactly the same as the prior version) would still require the PackageCode to change for release management of the MSI file.
A feature is a hierarchical group of components. A feature may contain any number of components and other sub-features. Smaller packages can consist of a single feature. More complex installers may display a "custom setup" dialog box, from which the user can select which features to install or remove.
The package author defines the product features. A word processor, for example, might place the program's core file into one feature, and the program's help files, optional spelling checker and stationery modules into additional features.
A component is the basic unit of a product. Each component is treated by Windows Installer as a unit. The installer cannot install just part of a component.[9] Components can contain program files, folders, COM components, registry keys, and shortcuts. The user does not directly interact with components.
Components are identified globally by GUIDs; thus the same component can be shared among several features of the same package or multiple packages, ideally through the use of Merge Modules.
A key path is a specific file, registry key, or ODBC data source that the package author specifies as critical for a given component. Because a file is the most common type of key path, the term key file is commonly used. A component can contain at most one key path; if a component has no explicit key path, the component's destination folder is taken to be the key path. When an MSI-based program is launched, Windows Installer checks the existence of key paths. If there is a mismatch between the current system state and the value specified in the MSI package (e.g., a key file is missing), the related feature is re-installed. This process is known as self-healing or self-repair. No two components should use the same key path.
Creating an installer package for a new application is not trivial.[10] It is necessary to specify which files must be installed, to where and with what registry keys. Any non-standard operations can be done using Custom Actions, which are typically developed in DLLs. There are a number of commercial and freeware products to assist in creating MSI packages, including Visual Studio (natively up to VS 2010, with an extension on newer VS versions), InstallShield (developed by Revenera),[11] WiX, InnoSetup, InstallSimple and Advanced Installer. To varying degrees, the user interface and behavior may be configured for use in less common situations such as unattended installation. Once prepared, an installer package is "compiled" by reading the instructions and files from the developer's local machine, and creating the .msi file.
The user interface (dialog boxes) presented at the start of installation can be changed or configured by the setup engineer developing a new installer. There is a limited language of buttons, text fields and labels which can be arranged in a sequence of dialogue boxes. An installer package should be capable of running without any UI, for what is called "unattended installation".
Microsoft provides a set of Internal Consistency Evaluators (ICE) that can be used to detect potential problems with an MSI database.[12] The ICE rules are combined into CUB files, which are stripped-down MSI files containing custom actions that test the target MSI database's contents for validation warnings and errors. ICE validation can be performed with the Platform SDK tools Orca and msival2, or with validation tools that ship with the various authoring environments.
For example, some of the ICE rules are:
Addressing ICE validation warnings and errors is an important step in the release process.
| Version | Included with[1] | Also available for |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | Office 2000 | N/a |
| 1.1 | Windows 2000 (RTM, SP1 & SP2) | Windows 95 Windows NT 4.0 Windows 98 |
| 1.2 | Windows Me | N/a |
| 2.0 | Windows 2000 (SP3+) Windows XP (RTM & SP1) Windows Server 2003 (RTM) |
Windows 95 Windows NT 4.0 Windows 98 Windows 2000 Windows Me |
| 3.0 | Windows XP (SP2) | Windows 2000 (SP3+) Windows XP Windows Server 2003 |
| 3.1 | Windows XP (SP3) Windows Server 2003 (SP1+) Windows XP x64 Edition | |
| 4.0 | Windows Vista (RTM & SP1) Windows Server 2008 (RTM) |
N/a |
| 4.5[14] | Windows Vista (SP2) Windows Server 2008 (SP2) |
Windows XP (SP2+) Windows Server 2003 (SP1+) Windows XP x64 Edition Windows Vista Windows Server 2008[15] |
| 5.0 | Windows 7 or later Windows Server 2008 R2 or later |
N/a |
| Archiving only | |
|---|---|
| Compressing only | |
| Archiving and compressing | |
| Software packaging and distributing | |
| Document packaging and distributing | |
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Windows Installer (msiexec.exe, formerly named Microsoft Installer, codename Darwin) is a software component and application programming interface (API) of Microsoft Windows, used to install, maintain, and remove software. The installing information, and optionally the related files, are packaged in installation packages, loosely relational databases structured as COM Structured Storages and commonly known as "MSI files", from their default filename extensions. The packages with the file extensions mst contain Windows Installer "Transformation Scripts", those with the msm extensions contain "Merge Modules" and the file extension pcp is used for "Patch Creation Properties". Windows Installer contains significant changes from its predecessor, Setup API. New features include a graphical user interface (GUI) framework and automatic generation of the uninstallation sequence. Windows Installer is positioned as an alternative to stand-alone executable installer frameworks such as older versions of InstallShield and Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS). Before the introduction of Windows Installer, the Windows Setup API can be used in Windows 3.x and Windows 9x. The Setup API can do file copy, as well as INI file or Windows Registry update. Since Windows 2000, use Windows Installer to install application is recommended; Setup API is still used for install device drivers. Before the introduction of Microsoft Store (then named Windows Store), Microsoft encouraged third parties to use Windows Installer as the basis for installation frameworks, so that they synchronize correctly with other installers and keep the internal database of installed products consistent. Important features such as rollback and versioning depend on a consistent internal database for reliable operation. Furthermore, Windows Installer facilitates the principle of least privilege by performing software installations by proxy for unprivileged users.
Nullsoft, Inc. was an American software company founded in Sedona, Arizona in 1997 by programmer Justin Frankel. Its products included the Winamp media player and the SHOUTcast MP3 streaming media server.
SCons is a software development tool that analyzes source code dependencies and operating system adaptation requirements from a software project description and generates final binary executables for installation on the target operating system platform. Its function is similar to the more popular GNU build system. The tool generates Python scripts for project configuration and build logic.
Winamp is a media player for Microsoft Windows originally developed by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev by their company Nullsoft, which they later sold to AOL in 1999 for $80 million. It was then acquired by Radionomy in 2014, now known as the Winamp Group. Since version 2, it has been sold as freemium and supports extensibility with plug-ins and skins, and features music visualization, playlist and a media library, supported by a large online community. Version 1 of Winamp was released in 1997, along with basic counterparts for MS-DOS and Macintosh, and quickly grew popular with over 3 million downloads, paralleling the developing trend of MP3 file sharing. Winamp 2.0 was released on September 8, 1998. The 2.x versions were widely used and made Winamp one of the most downloaded Windows applications. By 2000, Winamp had over 25 million registered users and by 2001 it had 60 million users. A poor reception to the 2002 rewrite, Winamp3, was followed by the release of Winamp 5 in 2003, and a later release of version 5.5 in 2007. Winamp for Android was released in 2010. The last AOL-developed version, Winamp 5.666, was released in 2013. After a five-year hiatus, Winamp 5.8 (written as Winamp 5. ∞ {\displaystyle \infty } ) was leaked to the public in 2018 before its eventual release by Radionomy; development has since resumed with the latest version 5.9.2 released on April 26, 2023. Its developer Radionomy has since rebranded as Llama Group (later Winamp Group) and launched a streaming service that allows users to support artists by buying perks or NFTs. The service launched on the web in April 2023, followed by beta apps for Android and iOS in July 2023. In September 2024, Llama Group partially released the Winamp source code for Windows under a custom source-available license; the source repository was deleted soon afterwards following criticism for its license terms and inclusion of proprietary code.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Joe Louis.
