Windows Installer 4.5 Beta 2 for Vista SP1 and XP SP3

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Announced at the beginning of this month, Windows Installer 4.5 Beta 2 went live on Microsoft Connect. Windows Installer 4.5 Beta 2 is designed to bring to the table down-level packages tailored on Windows XP SP2 and SP3, as well as Windows Vista RTM and SP1, and Windows 2003 Server SP1 and above. Microsoft has also managed to address a consistent list of issues that were identified in the previous version of the Windows Installer.

This is the last step preceding the finalization of Windows Installer 4.5.

"Windows Installer v4.5 (MSI 4.5) is an update to Windows Installer 4.0 released in November 2006. Windows Installer 4.5 contains new functionality and addresses some issues found in the Windows Installer 4.0 release. The goals of the Windows Installer 4.5 Beta 2 program are to solicit feedback on new and enhanced features, to allow developers to evaluate and begin to plan for features available in the final release of MSI 4.5, and to augment the regression and application compatibility testing for Windows Installer based applications," from the Windows Installer 4.5 Beta 2 documentation.