Adding support for the just-released Windows Installer 4.5, a free update for InstallAware 7 has been shipped by InstallAware Software Corporation. Ahead of other competitors such as InstallShield, InstallAware is the first installation toolkit at this time to support the final released version of Windows Installer 4.5. Within 48 hours after Microsoft's own release, this free update was launched.

Major new features for application deployment, such as chaining multiple setup packages together are introduced by Windows Installer 4.5. If an error occurs in any one of the chained packages, or the end-user decides to abort the installation, multiple chained packages can be installed in a single, atomic transaction that can be rolled back. Especially when most applications today have dependencies on component and technology frameworks, this helps make application installations more robust. All .NET applications, for instance, require the installation of the Microsoft .NET Framework; which can now be installed together with your applications in a transactional, atomic way.
 
Developers, even without the Windows Installer 4.5 update, can already chain multiple packages together using InstallAware's advanced setup bootstrapping capabilities. Dramatically improving the end-user experience, and impressing your brand throughout the entire duration of your application's setup - even during the installation of its pre-requisites, such as the .NET Framework, InstallAware's advanced bootstrapper captures the actual installation progress of each chained package and displays it natively in your own setup wizard. Instead of requiring end-users to manually populate configuration settings inside separate third-party installation windows, InstallAware's advanced bootstrapper also pre-populates third-party package options as necessary, eliminating yet another potential point of failure in your installations, which in turn helps reduce your support and maintenance costs.

To take advantage of Windows Installer 4.5 features, it is not necessary to overhaul existing InstallAware projects. It literally takes two lines of InstallAware code - one to begin a transaction, and the other to end the ongoing transaction - to create atomic, transactional installation regions directly within existing setup projects. Absolutely no setup re-engineering is required! Coupled with InstallAware's existing bootstrapping capabilities, this makes InstallAware the tool of choice for building complex, powerful Windows Installer setups that span multiple setup packages.
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