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when setup isn't just xcopy

WiX v3.5 <3's Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2

Never before today had I considered adding support for emoticons to my blog engine but this blog post almost screams for it. You should read the title as "WiX v3.5 hearts VS2010 Beta 2". Yep, our friends in Visual Studio delivered fix after fix in Votive to ensure that the WiX toolset now supports Visual Studio 2010 Beta2.

Candy is a Program Manager on Visual Studio who was also instrumental in our WiX v3.0 releases (in case you didn't remember). She sent this status around internally today that I thought should get a lot more publicity:

Visual Studio 2010 Beta shipped on 10/21. With the team’s hard work and agility, we were able to release the WiX support on VS2010 Beta 2 today! Here are some highlights for this release:

• Extension Manager Integration – Now you can download and install WiX directly from within the VS IDE by launching Extension Manager
• Major performance improvement during project building – No more IDE freezing during build
• Automatic upgrade from VS2008 to VS2010 – no more manual editing of wixproj files to change the tools version
• Improved IDE experience including drag/drop of nodes, copy/paste of items, and project references
• Added Visual Studio 2010 Express products detection in the WiX VS Extension – New in Beta
• Over 40 + bug fixes

I'm extremely happy to see the "No more IDE freezing during build" feature but there is a bug fix that I'm actually happier to have fixed. The WiX toolset can now run on and read .NET Framework 4.0 assemblies. That was a late bug Jordan and Mohamed (both Visual Studio Developers in Test) caught and Svet (Visual Studio Developer Lead) got the fix in last night.

So, the Votive half of WiX v3.5 is going well. Now, I just need to get the other half of WiX v3.5, Burn, caught up. In the meantime, check out the latest WiX toolset build on Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2.

 

Definitely the end of the beginning.

Almost exactly a year ago, on the anniversary where I declared November 4th a personal holiday, I said I felt like I was "at the end of the beginning". Today I decided that I have definitely completed the beginning. On Monday, I start the middle.

Just like always, all the change hit at the same time.  In August, I did the work to start RobMensching.com LLC. It took two years of talking about it to finally sit down and make the company really happen. Little did I know that a few days later in September that I would decide to leave the Live Mesh team.

No, I did not decide to leave Microsoft. No, I'm not saying where I'm going yet. Suffice it to say that today was my last day on Live Mesh and on Monday I will take on new yet familiar challenges.

Now don't take my decision to think there is anything wrong with Live Mesh. The team there was good. An opportunity just came up that looked like a fantastic opportunity for personal and professional growth.

Oh, and did I mention I got started and completed my first contract work under RobMensching.com LLC while all this was going? Yeah.

Anyway, so now you know why I went dark.exe for a while. All is well. I'm looking forward to November 4th where I'll spend the day walking around the neighborhood reflecting on the last year and the year to come.

In the meantime, keep coding. You know I am. <smile/>