Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset

A lot of people make a big deal out of turning 40. There are plenty of popular sayings, jokes and even movies about turning 40. But most of them are negative. But I don't know why. I don't feel that way. Maybe it's because I don't feel like I'm 40 today. But I am 40 today and it's time to review.

Last week I fixed my oldest bug in WiX v3.11, the bad filenames bug. This week I'm going to continue to start with my oldest bug and grab a couple others that are related. So I'm fixing #4812, #4813, #5270 and because I expect those to be easy, I'll ... [More] also fix #5438. To be honest, I expect it will take me longer to write this blog entry about my work than it will to do the actual work. Let's see if I'm right. Let's code! [Less]

For the longest time, the bulk of the WiX Toolset was developed on "WiX Nights". One night a week a bunch of us would hang out at my house or (later) in a meeting room at Microsoft, eat dinner and write some code. It was a great way to maintain ... [More] momentum but it was terrible at including those that were not physically present. Today the core set of WiX developers are spread about the country so gathering in a room together isn't a possiblity. But I'd like to find a way to get the momentum back. So tonight, I'm trying an experiment. I'm starting this blog entry before I start working on a bug fix. Before finishing tonight, I will then write the conclusion of the post with a summary of what I got done. My hope is to get into a habit where, at least, one night a week I make some progress and start building some of that momentum again. So, enough introduction. Let's code! [Less]

I just finished watching the Windows 10 Creators Update announcement. My first thought was "Win10 CU" which I immediately read as "Windows 10 Cumulative Update". But we already knew that every Win10 release is a cumulative update. So what did we learn today. Here's some of my initial thoughts.

I just finished watching the Windows 10 Creators Update announcement. My first tought was "Win10 CU" which I immediately read as "Windows 10 Cumulutive Update". But we already knew that every Win10 release is a cumulutive update. So what did we learn today. Here's some of my initial thoughts.

It is my pleasure to annouce that WiX Toolset v3.10 is now officially declared Production/Stable. This build contains a couple fixes beyond WiX v3.10 RC2 so you will want to download the latest release.

Today we release WiX Toolset v3.10.1. As the ".1" indicates this is a maintenance release to fix an issue that couldn't wait for the next big release. Namely, some Windows XP support was broken due to changes in the VC++ compiler. Given that we were releasing again, we decided to take another high impact fix.

FireGiant headquarters are in San Diego, CA so it is understandable when people think I live there. I don't. I tell them FireGiant is a distributed company where employees live anywhere in the connected world. I live here.

Today I turn 39. This is the birthday where everyone asks you if you are ready for 40. After being asked that question several times, I realized I don't really think about my birthday that way. My birthday is a point where I reflect on the past year ... [More] and look to what the days of the next year might bring. I'll deal with 40--whatever that means--when I turn 40. Today I look review. [Less]

After the kids go to bed, I listen to NPR podcasts while cleaning up the house before getting back to work. Tonight I heard a story about a computer program used to trap telemarketers that made me laugh. The whole thing got me thinking about an old idea I had for dealing with referer spam.