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DeployMaster Changelog

What's new in DeployMaster 7.3.0

Jan 4, 2024
  • Improvements:
  • Media: Full path to signtool.exe is now treated as a full command line with command line arguments if you include the placeholder %FILE%.
  • Media: http://ts.ssl.com can now be selected as the timestamping service URL.
  • Platform: Windows 11 version restriction now supports version 23H2 (2023 Update).

New in DeployMaster 7.2.0 (Feb 28, 2023)

  • New features:
  • 3rd Party: .NET 4.8.1.
  • Language: Bundled language files for Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, and Spanish.
  • Platform: Windows 10 version restriction now supports version 22H2 (2022 Update).
  • Platform: Windows 11 can now be restricted to specific releases of Windows 11; present options are 21H2 (Original Release) and 22H2 (2022 Update) and/or future versions.
  • Improvement:
  • Registry: The UninstallString registry value that your installer automatically creates to tell Windows the location of the uninstaller now puts double quotes around that path if it contains spaces; this satisfies vulnerability scanners that look for unquoted file paths in the registry; Windows never had any problems with the unquoted path.
  • Bug fix:
  • Platform: None of the Controlled Folder Access options were used if your installer targeted Windows 10 1803 or later only (the ones you enabled were used if you (additionally) targeted Windows 11 or Windows 10 1709).

New in DeployMaster 7.1.1 (Apr 21, 2022)

  • Improvement:
  • Maximum core setup size (the installer itself plus essential files like the support DLL, icons, and background image) can now be up to 10 MB in size.
  • Bug fix:
  • Desktop icon now has “DeployMaster 7” instead of “DeployMaster 6” as its label.

New in DeployMaster 7.1.0 (Oct 13, 2021)

  • New features:
  • Media: Path to signtool.exe to enable signing installers using EV code signing certificates stored on a USB token.
  • Platform: Windows 10 version restriction now supports version 21H1 (May 2021 Update).
  • Platform: Windows 11.

New in DeployMaster 7.0.0 (Apr 5, 2021)

  • New feature:
  • Media: Also sign unsigned .dll and .ocx files added to the setup.
  • Improvements:
  • Files: If you specify an executable to be run with the /regserver parameter during installation, the installer now changes this to /regserverperuser if the application is being installed for the current user only.
  • Finished: If you specify an executable to be run with the /unregserver parameter before uninstallation, the installer now changes this to /unregserverperuser if the application was installed for the current user only.
  • Media: Updated timestamping URLs which are now only used when targeting Windows 7 or later.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Files: Opening a DeployMaster script selected the first component but did not reveal the component’s options.
  • Finished: The program to be run before uninstallation was not run if it was the only file added to the installer.

New in DeployMaster 6.6.0 (Nov 4, 2020)

  • New features:
  • Per-monitor DPI scaling for DeployMaster itself; generated installers still use system DPI scaling.
  • Platform: Windows 10 version restriction now supports version 20H2 (October 2020 Update).
  • Improvements:
  • Uninstall: Do not call RemoveDirectory() on reparse points to avoid removing symbolic directory links and virtual drive mount points.

New in DeployMaster 6.5.3 (Jun 2, 2020)

  • Improvement:
  • Platform: Windows 10 version restriction now supports version 2004 (May 2020 Update).

New in DeployMaster 6.5.2 (Dec 6, 2019)

  • Improvement:
  • Platform: Windows 10 version restriction now supports version 1909 (November 2019 Update).
  • Bug fix:
  • Installer no longer complains that it is damaged when it is run from a path that contains characters that cannot be represented in the system code page.

New in DeployMaster 6.5.1 (Sep 4, 2019)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Language: Editing a string and clicking the Build button on the toolbar now correctly updates the edited string in the language file before building the installer.
  • Silent installs did not start at all when run from a command prompt without admin privileges and the installer allowed installation for all users as well as installation for the current user without admin privileges; now the installer will proceed installing for the current user without admin privileges. If the application was previously installed for all users or if /userall is passed on the command line then a silent install from a command prompt without admin privileges triggers an elevation prompt so it can continue installing for all users.

New in DeployMaster 6.5.0 (May 24, 2019)

  • New features:
  • rd Party .NET 4.8.
  • Platform Windows 10 version restriction now supports version 1903 (May 2019 Update).
  • Improvements:
  • Files Tree control no longer shows tooltips.
  • Project Today checkbox also replaces the year in the copyright string.
  • Bug fixes:
  • rd Party Selecting .NET 4.7.2 as the minimum version caused the installer to display “?.?” as the minimum required version if 4.7.2 was not yet installed. This did not affect proper detection and installation of .NET 4.7.2.
  • File Types Extension edit control now allows you to enter all characters that are valid in file names.

New in DeployMaster 6.4.0 (Nov 16, 2018)

  • New features:
  • Command line parameters /ver and /lang to override the version and the language selected in the .deploy file.
  • Platform Windows 10 version restriction now supports version 1809 (October 2018 Update and Server 2019).
  • Bug fixes:
  • Project - License agreements or readme files without an extension caused the installer to crash if a file with the same name already existed in the user's temporary files folder.
  • Project - Readme files without an extension are now treated as plain text files to be displayed in the installer window rather than in an external program, which does not work without an extension.

New in DeployMaster 6.3.1 (Aug 28, 2018)

  • Improvements:
  • Appearance: Do not create the form to cover the screen background unless it's actually needed to avoid needlessly triggering Avast's Do Not Disturb mode.
  • Platform: Windows Server 2016 now officially supported (treated as Windows 10 Anniversary Update).
  • Bug fixes:
  • DeployMasterCmd /b /q can now be used to build installers on Windows Server 2012 Core and Windows Server 2016 (without the desktop).
  • DeployMasterCmd /b /q no longer fails to build installers with the option to completely cover the screen background with an error saying "cannot focus a disabled or invisible window".
  • Installers now run correctly and can even show their GUI on Windows Server 2012 Core and Windows Server 2016 (without the desktop) which have minimal support for GUI applications; previously they failed with a "class not registered" error.

New in DeployMaster 6.3.0 (May 9, 2018)

  • New features:
  • 3rd Party: .NET 4.7.2.
  • Platform: Windows 10 version restriction now supports version 1803 (April 2018 Update).
  • Registry: Keep existing value option to prevent overwriting existing values; this also prevents uninstalling those values if they existed prior to installation.
  • Improvements:
  • Build: Abort button on the password prompt for the code signing certificate that aborts the current build entirely.
  • Build: Cancel button on the password prompt for the code signing certificate is now labeled Don't Sign and now cancels all signatures for the current build.
  • Platform: Adding installed executables to the list of applications allowed through Controlled Folder Access now checks whether each executable was added already so no time is wasted adding one that is already on the list.
  • Platform: Controlled Folder Access options are now ignored if the installer detects that Windows Defender is disabled which would indicate that the user has another anti-virus solution that (like BitDefender) might treat the installer's attempt to allow an app through Controlled Folder Access as malicious.
  • Platform: Testing whether Controlled Folder Access is enabled is now done by checking registry keys rather than trying to write to the Documents folder, avoiding a warning in the notification area if Controlled Folder Access is enabled.
  • Setup: Advanced installation now makes the installer taller if it needs to show a long list of folders or file types.

New in DeployMaster 6.2.1 (Jan 22, 2018)

  • Improvements:
  • Installer now shows a progress meter while it adds itself to Controlled Folder Access.
  • Installer now shows only one error message at a time when multiple files cannot be installed.
  • Platform: If you turn on both the options to test for Controlled Folder Access and to temporarily allow the installer through Controlled Folder Access, then the installer no longer adds itself to the allowed applications if the test finds that it is not being blocked.
  • Bug fixes:
  • 64-bit installers never showed the warning when testing whether writing to the Documents folder is blocked by Controlled Folder Access.
  • 64-bit installers replaced %DESKTOP%, %MYDOCUMENTS%, and %COMMONDOCUMENTS% with empty strings if they were being blocked by Controlled Folder Access, causing shortcuts, files, and folders that should be installed into these folders to be installed into the root of the drive.
  • Appearance: Background labels with version and date placeholders were not immediately updated on the preview shown when activating the Appearance page after changing the version or release date on the Project page.

New in DeployMaster 6.2.0 (Jan 17, 2018)

  • 3rd Party: .NET 4.7.1.
  • Platform: Option to add all installed .exe files to the list of apps allowed through Controlled Folder Access.
  • Platform: Option to ignore the inability to create desktop shortcuts if that may be due to Controlled Folder Access.
  • Platform: Option to temporarily add the installer to the list of apps allowed through Controlled Folder Access.
  • Platform: Option to test whether the installer can write to the desktop folder and show a customizable warning about Controlled Folder Access if it cannot.
  • Platform: Windows 10 can now be restricted to specific releases of Windows 10.
  • An application requiring .NET 4.7.1 does not support the initial release (1507) and the November update (1511) of Windows 10.

New in DeployMaster 6.1.2 (Oct 17, 2017)

  • Bug fix:
  • Installers containing fonts in the %FONTS% folder installed those fonts but did not register them.

New in DeployMaster 6.1.1 (Jul 4, 2017)

  • Improvement:
  • Project: Missing files are now treated as non-fatal errors while building.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Project: Absolute paths for default installation folders caused false errors saying you didn't specify those default installation folders (since 6.0.0).
  • Project: Absolute paths for default installation folders could be pasted in but not typed in as it wouldn't accept a colon (since 6.0.0).
  • Setup: If a file or folder with a % sign in its name could not be created then the installer showed an error about being unable to format the error message rather than an error about creating the file or folder.

New in DeployMaster 6.1.0 (Jul 4, 2017)

  • New features:
  • 3rd Party: .NET 4.7.
  • Help|News & Updates: New version announcements and other news about AceText and optionally other Just Great Software products can now be shown automatically or upon request.
  • Help|Support and Feedback: Explains how to obtain technical support.
  • Bug fixes:
  • %VERSION09% and %DATE09% placeholders stripped the digits from the version number and the release date instead of retaining only the digits from the version number and the release date (since 5.0.0).
  • 3rd Party: .NET 4.6.2 as included with the Windows 10 Anniversary update was incorrectly detected as being .NET 4.6.1 (.NET 4.6.2 was correctly detected on all other versions of Windows, including the Windows 10 November and Creators updates).

New in DeployMaster 6.0.1 (Feb 27, 2017)

  • Improvement:
  • Identity: Allow the registry key for identity information to specify HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_CURRENT_USER if only "install for all users" or only "install for current user" is checked on the Project page.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Appearance: Completely covering the screen background caused the installer to say "cannot focus a disabled or invisible window" when first starting the installer and after passing an elevation prompt (6.0.0 only).
  • Setup: Portable Installation should not be the default button when running an installer for an application that is already installed.

New in DeployMaster 6.0.0 (Feb 21, 2017)

  • New features:
  • Forum: +1 button that adds a "me too" vote to an issue such as a bug report or feature request.
  • Forum: Ability to filter down to conversations one participated in.
  • Forum: Ability to show complete conversations while searching.
  • Forum: Email notification level that includes conversations that you gave a +1 in addition to conversations that you participated in.
  • Forum: Server side search to search through the message bodies of all conversations, including ones you haven't viewed.
  • Project: Option to allow (or mandate) per-user installations that do not require administrator privileges with a separate set of default installation folders.
  • Project: Today checkbox automatically sets the release date to today's date when building the installer.
  • Registry: HKEY_AUTO root key that automatically switches between HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_CURRENT_USER for all-user and current-user installations.
  • Update: Best before date that disables the installer if it is older than a certain age or after a certain date.
  • Improvements:
  • File and component trees now use icons retrieved from the Windows shell.
  • File association for DeployMaster Setup Script files (*.deploy files) now uses an icon that is a variation of DeployMaster's application icon, making it easier to distinguish these files from the generated installers (if they use the default icon).
  • Files: Sort files and folders alphanumerically instead of alphabetically so that file9.txt comes before file10.txt.
  • Forum: Edited dates are now shown relative to the posted date if the time gap between now and the edited date is larger than the time gap between the posted date and the edited date.
  • Forum: Editing the summary of a message now also updates the subject of the conversation if it is the same as the old summary of the message.
  • Forum: Reply dates are now shown relative to the starting date if the time gap between now and the reply is larger than the time gap between the reply and the start of the conversation.
  • Forum: Sort attachments by clicking column headers in the list.
  • Language: DeployMaster's installer now allows the folder where language files are installed to be configured when doing an advanced installation.
  • Language: Language files are now only saved upon closing DeployMaster if they actually have changes that need saving.
  • Media: The %DATE%, %DATE09% and %YYYYMMDD% placeholders now use the release date specified on the Project page rather than today's date.
  • Project: Expand placeholders such as %APP% and %VERSION% in the readme file, license agreement, support DLL, and default installation paths.
  • Project: Specifying an icon now changes the icon of the generated setup.exe.
  • Setup: Component selection now uses checkbox images that support up to 300% display scaling at all increments available in the basic display settings in Windows.
  • Setup: DeployMaster itself can now be installed for the current user without admin rights.
  • Setup: Print button for printing the readme file or license agreement how has a text label that can be translated on the Language page.
  • Show the file name of the .deploy file in the caption bar.
  • Toolbar icons now support up to 400% display scaling at all increments available in the basic display settings in Windows, allowing DeployMaster to properly scale its toolbars on all PC and laptop displays on the market today.

New in DeployMaster 5.4.0 (Jan 9, 2017)

  • Improvements:
  • 3rd Party: .NET 4.6.1 and 4.6.2
  • Forum: Proxy password is now encrypted when stored in the .ini file
  • Registry: Expand placeholders such as %VERSION% and �TE%
  • Setup: Progress meter in the installer no longer updates itself for each and every file when very small files are being installed as this needlessly slowed down the installation
  • Setup: Readme file and license agreement are now displayed using the installer font specified on the Appearance page if they are plain text

New in DeployMaster 5.3.0 (Sep 23, 2016)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Build: A synchronization bug introduced in version 4.0.0 caused DeployMaster to waste up to 50 milliseconds per file while building the installer, significantly slowing down the build process for installers with thousands of very small files.
  • Setup: Checkboxes for selecting file associations now scale correctly on high DPI systems.

New in DeployMaster 5.2.0 (Feb 12, 2016)

  • Improvements:
  • Building on Windows 7 targeting only Windows 7 or later now applies an SHA-256 signature.
  • Building on Windows XP or Vista targeting Windows 10 or building on Windows 7 targeting Windows 10 as well as XP or Vista now warns that Windows 10 will require SHA-256 timestamps on 1/1/2017; the warning will turn into a non-fatal error on that date.

New in DeployMaster 5.1.0 (Jan 7, 2016)

  • Reverted to SHA-1 signatures when building installers on XP or Vista and when building installers targeting XP or Vista as SHA-1 signatures are still accepted by Windows 7 and later (as long as an SHA-256 certificate is used) in order to remove the minimum requirement of Windows 7 for signing installers targeting Windows 7 or later or Windows 8 for installers targeting XP or Vista and Windows 7 or later.

New in DeployMaster 5.0.1 (Dec 25, 2015)

  • Reverted to Authenticode time stamping of signatures for Windows 7 and later when building on Windows 7 as RFC 3161 time stamping does not work on Windows 7.

New in DeployMaster 5.0.0 (Dec 22, 2015)

  • Improvements:
  • Build button is now disabled while a build is in progress so you cannot accidentally start concurrent builds (which would fail).
  • Build can now be aborted by clicking the new Abort button.
  • Code signing now applies a signature with an SHA-256 instead of an SHA-1 message digest when Windows 7 or later are selected on the Platform page and no older Windows versions are selected. This requires the installer to be built on Windows 7 or later. SHA-1 is still used when Windows 7 and later are NOT selected on the Platform page.
  • Code signing now applies dual signatures, one with an SHA-1 digest and one with an SHA-256 digest when Windows XP or Vista is selected and at time same time Windows 7 or later is selected on the Platform page. This requires the installer to be built on Windows 8 or later.
  • Minimum required operating system for building installers is now Windows XP.
  • Time stamping is now done using RFC 3161 for digital signatures for Windows 7 or later. This requires the installer to be built on Windows 7 or later. Authenticode time stamps are still used for signatures for XP and Vista.

New in DeployMaster 4.3.0 (Aug 19, 2015)

  • New features:
  • Platform: Windows 10.
  • Project: Option to skip license agreement when installing on top of a previous install.
  • Setup: /appfolder, /appmenu, /appcommonfolder, and /userdata command line parameters to change the installation folders.
  • Setup: /temp command line parameter to change the temporary files folder.
  • Improvements:
  • DeployMaster's own installer now puts a single shortcut directly in the Start menu which better fits the Start menu on Windows 10.
  • Silent installations and uninstallations with the /s command line parameter as an alternative to /silent.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Appearance: Background bitmap did not appear when previewing the background in DeployMaster after reloading a previously saved installation script.
  • Setup: Show an error message instead

New in DeployMaster 4.2.3 (May 8, 2015)

  • New feature:
  • 3rd Party: .NET 4.6
  • Improvements:
  • 3rd Party: If you require a .NET version on the 3rd Party page then you now have to deselect the versions of Windows that are not supported by that .NET version on the Platform page; DeployMaster will tell you which versions you have to deselect when you attempt to build the installer
  • Uninstall: /silent command line parameter can now be passed without having to also pass the path to the deploy.log file
  • Bug fixes:
  • Appearance: Turning on the option to completely cover the screen background and selecting a bitmap file to be shown on the background caused the installer to crash upon startup if it was run with the /silent command line parameter
  • Setup: 64-bit installers crashed when showing the readme file or license agreement if the AllocationPreference registry key forces memory to be allocated from the top down (installers built with DeployMaster never use more than a few hundred MB of RAM, so without this registry key there is never any issue with pointers beyond 4 GB)

New in DeployMaster 4.2.2 (Oct 9, 2014)

  • New features:
  • 3rd Party: .NET 4.5.1 and 4.5.2.
  • Media: Select time stamping URL; stored as a global setting so you only need to change it once in case the previously selected time stamping URL becomes inaccessible.
  • Improvements:
  • Build: Descriptive error message in case code signing fails because the time stamping URL is not accessible.
  • Setup: Windows 10 is now detected as Windows 10 rather than as Windows 8.1 when checking whether the user is running a version of Windows that you have indicated support for on the Platform page.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Identity: Values returned by LoadIdentity() or LoadIdentityA() in the support DLL were not used if Windows 98 and Windows ME were deselected on the Project tab (in which case DeployMaster generates a Unicode installer).
  • Media: Splitting the installer into chunks of a certain size resulted in chunks files without file names if you did not specify a file name for the installer without 3rd-party installers.

New in DeployMaster 4.2.1 (Feb 20, 2014)

  • Improvement:
  • Appearance: Placeholders such as %VERSION% that are expanded in the file and folder names specified on the Media tab are now also expanded in the labels specified on the Appearance tab.
  • Bug fixes:
  • 3rd party: Windows 8.1 ships with a more recent build of the .NET framework 4.5 than Windows 8. DeployMaster detected this as .NET 4.0 instead of .NET 4.5.
  • Forum: Feeds button for preparing RSS feeds to follow the forum was missing.
  • Help: Directly clicking the Help button did nothing. Using the drop-down menu of the Help button or pressing F1 worked fine.
  • Update: Spaces in window captions were treated as delimiters between multiple captions. Now they are treated as literal characters so captions that consist of multiple words can be detected. You can use semicolons to delimit multiple captions.

New in DeployMaster 4.2.0 (Aug 19, 2013)

  • New features:
  • Forum: SOCKS proxy server support.
  • Platform: Windows 8.1.
  • Improvements:
  • Folder browser in the installer now shows hidden folders so that the ProgramData and AppData folders will be shown, making it possible to browse for a different Start Menu or User Data folder.
  • Forum: HTTP proxy server support extended with more authentication methods.
  • Registry: Expand placeholders in registry value names.
  • Bug fix:
  • Forum continued to use the old proxy settings until you closed the forum window if you changed the proxy settings after having successfully connected to the forum.

New in DeployMaster 4.1.2 (Jan 23, 2013)

  • 3rd Party: Command line parameters are not passed to 3rd party installers.
  • 3rd Party: MSI installers are not run silently when your installer is run silently.
  • Identity: Some combinations of identity settings were not handled correctly while building the installer, causing the installer to skip asking for identity information if no support DLL with identity routines was provided, or to ask for all information if it was.
  • Uninstaller: Unregistering DLLs caused command prompt windows to briefly flash on the screen.

New in DeployMaster 4.1.1 (Oct 16, 2012)

  • Improvement:
  • Platform: %VERSION% placeholder can now be used in the messages for mismatched bitness and mismatched Windows versions.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Registry: %SETUPFOLDER% and %SETUPDRIVE% placeholders were replaced with empty strings instead of the folder and drive from which the installer was launched.
  • Update: Deleting files that were part of a previous version but aren't part of the current version should not delete shared files that are still used by other applications. In particular.

New in DeployMaster 4.1.0 (Sep 28, 2012)

  • New features:
  • 3rd Party: Detect and install version 4.5 of the .NET framework.
  • Files: Windows 8 option for shortcuts under %APPMENU% to specify whether the shortcut should be pinned to the Windows 8 Start Screen upon initial installation or not.
  • Media: Compression method option to choose between faster or stronger compression; "best" is the method used by DeployMaster 4.0.x.
  • Media: %VERSION% and �TE% placeholders for the version and release date in the file name and output folder for the generated Setup.exe; use %VERSION09% and �TE09% for the same with only the digits 0 to 9; use %YYYYMMDD% for this format instead of the system default short date format.
  • Platform: Windows 8 option to specify whether to allow your installer to be run on Windows 8 or not.
  • Improvements:
  • 3rd Party/Files/Finished: %SILENT% placeholder that can be used in command line parameters; it will be substituted with /silent when the installer was run with the /silent paremeter, and be blank when the installer was not run with the /silent parameter.
  • 3rd Party: Folder placeholders such as %APPFOLDER% can now be used in the parameters for 3rd party installers.
  • Files/Registry: F2 key now allows you to edit items on the Files page and Registry page as could previously be done by clicking twice slowly.
  • Finished: The shortcut to the uninstaller should not appear on the start screen on Windows 8.
  • Media: Building the installer creates the output folder if it does not yet exist instead of failing to write the installer.
  • Media: Building the installer without saving the .deploy file and without specifying an output folder now shows an error instead of attempting to write the installer to whichever folder happens to be the active folder.
  • Project: Application icon is now used to list the application in the Programs and Features applet in the Window Control Panel if you add the same icon as a file on the Files page. Otherwise, the icon for the desktop shortcut is used as in previous versions of DeployMaster.
  • Terminate with an exit code that indicates whether there were any warnings, non-fatal errors or fatal errors when building from the command line with DeployMasterCmd.exe.
  • Uninstall: Installing a 32-bit version on top of a 64-bit version or vice versa now removes the registry keys for the uninstaller of the old version, so that the application isn't listed twice in the Control Panel.
  • Uninstaller is now placed into %APPFOLDER% rather than %WINDOWS% so that each application has its own copy of the uninstaller, with the digital signature of each application's vendor.
  • Uninstaller now refuses to run if the user doesn't have administrator rights and is unable to obtain them through elevation (UAC disabled or running Windows XP or earlier).
  • Bug fix:
  • Silent installs failed with an error claiming insufficient access rights when run from an account with full administrator privileges that does not require elevation on a system with UAC enabled, such as the Administrator account on Windows Server 2008.

New in DeployMaster 4.0.7 (Apr 6, 2012)

  • This release fixes one bug that we missed in version 4.0.6. Version 4.0.6 fixed several bugs related to silent installations, but unfortunately also introduced a new bug. Silent installs of installers built with version 4.0.6 did not properly substitute built-in placeholder folders such as %PROGRAMFILES% causing files and folders to be installed into the root of the drive that the setup was run from. Rebuilding your installer with version 4.0.7 will make silent installs use the proper folders again.

New in DeployMaster 4.0.6 (Mar 12, 2012)

  • Improvement:
  • Forum: The button to delete messages is now labeled Cancel for messages that are being edited, to make it more obvious that this button deletes the edited message, but leaves the original message in place.
  • Bug fixes:
  • 3rd Party: Do not show an error about the file name of the generated setup being the same as that of a 3rd party setup when one of the .NET options is selected but no .NET installer is specified and one of the file names for the setups to generate on the Media tab is blank.
  • 3rd Party: If one of the .NET versions was selected and a .NET installer file was specified but no .NET download URL was specified then the generated installer crashed upon startup.
  • Appearance: Turning on the option to completely cover the screen background caused the installer to crash upon startup if it was run with the /silent command line parameter.
  • Forum: Search box did not work.
  • Installer: License key was not installed when installing DeployMaster 4.0.x silently.
  • Project: Support DLL was not used when running the installer with the /silent command line parameter.

New in DeployMaster 4.0.5 (Jan 2, 2012)

  • Improvements:
  • Build: Errors with signing .exe files added to the setup are now treated as non-fatal, allowing the setup to be built successfully. Not signing .exe files to be installed by the setup does not affect the security warnings that occur during installation at all.
  • Setup: When typing a full path with a drive letter as the installation folder for a portable install, automatically select that drive in the list so that the installation will be created on that drive instead of the drive that was previously selected in the list.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Forum: Links to DeployMaster forum messages were not highlighted as such and were not handled by DeployMaster when such a URL was invoked.
  • Help: Disabled context-sensitive help in the 64-bit version of DeployMaster if Internet Explorer 9 is installed. IE 9 causes all 64-bit applications that use a .chm file for context-sensitive help to crash when a link in the help file is clicked.
  • Update: Installer crashed on startup when the option to require a previous version to be installed was turned on.

New in DeployMaster 4.0.3 (Dec 2, 2011)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Media: Specifying a PFX file containing the code signing certificate caused DeployMaster to look for a hard-coded path to a Just Great Software PFX file instead of the PFX file you specified.
  • Registry: Folder placeholders such as %APPFOLDER% in registry values were not expanded (4.0.x only).
  • Setup: The installer would not proceed beyond the welcome screen (except for portable installations) on Windows Server 2008 if the user was logged on as an actual Administrator (as opposed to a user with administrative privileges) and User Account Control (UAC) was enabled (4.0.x only).
  • Setup: If the installer allowed portable installations and the application was already installed on the hard disk and the user running the installer did not have sufficient access rights to update the installation on the hard disk, a message saying that a previous version was already installed was overlaid on top of the message saying only portable installations were possible. Now the setup will only say that only portable installations are possible.

New in DeployMaster 4.0.2 (Dec 2, 2011)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Appearance: Turning on the option to cover the screen background caused DeployMaster to get stuck behind the background. This only happened on Windows 7 and only in the DeployMaster Builder
  • Media: The setup with integrated 3rd party installers always claimed to be damaged if you requested both a setup with 3rd party packages and a setup without 3rd party packages to be built at the same time
  • Setup: If the setup covered the screen background and needed elevation on Windows Vista or Windows 7 then it showed a harmless error message about not being able to focus a window

New in DeployMaster 4.0.1 (Dec 2, 2011)

  • New feature:
  • Files: Waiting for executables that are run as part of the installation is now optional.
  • Improvement:
  • Language: Language files are now saved as Unicode, so characters in all scripts are properly preserved. DeployMaster will still read non-Unicode language files as well as UTF-8 and UTF-16 files that start with a Unicode signature (BOM).
  • Bug fixes:
  • Setup: If a previous version was already installed, the welcome screen of the installer indicated that the current version was already installed rather than the previous version (4.0.0 only).
  • Setup: The installer would not proceed beyond the welcome screen (except for portable installations) on Windows Vista and Windows 7 if User Account Control (UAC) was disabled (4.0.0 only).

New in DeployMaster 4.0.0 (Dec 2, 2011)

  • New features:
  • Command line: /q parameter that can be used in combination with /b to build the setup without showing DeployMaster's user interface.
  • Command line: DeployMasterCmd.exe is a console application that launches DeployMaster.exe and writes errors and warnings that appear on the Build tab to standard output; pass the /v parameter to write progress messages too.
  • Files: %FONTS% folder for installing system fonts that DeployMaster will automatically register to make them available to all applications.
  • Files: Option for each .exe file to run it with certain command line parameters after all files are copied but before the installation completes. This can be used to register .exes as COM servers, etc.
  • Files: Option to make a folder writable by all users on Windows Vista and 7.
  • Files: Option to mark files as 32-bit or 64-bit or both when creating installers that support both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows.
  • Forum that can be accessed from within DeployMaster via the Help menu.
  • Media: Automatic code signing for the setup.exe and any files added to the setup.
  • Platform: 64-bit installer to install 64-bit applications, with options to support 32-bit, 64-bit, or both.
  • Platform: Specify which versions of Windows your setup should support, so users don't attempt to install your software on versions of Windows that your software does not support.
  • Project: New app-specific folder %USERDATA% that defaults to %APPDATAROOT%\AppName for installing user data files.
  • Update: Specify window caption or class name for DeployMaster to test whether the application is still running so it can prevent the installation if it is.
  • Improvements:
  • Build: Files that turn out to be incompressible or barely compressible are now stored uncompressed in the setup.exe for faster extraction.
  • Build: LZMA compression.
  • Build: Use all available CPU cores to compress files.
  • Files: No restriction on the maximum size of each file or the total size of all files in the setup, even when creating a 32-bit setup.
  • Files: The size of each file added to the setup and the total size of the setup is no longer limited to 2 GB. The new (theoretical) limit is 9 billion GB (2^63 bytes).
  • Finished: Open start menu and run installed application without administrator privileges.
  • Media: Choices to have a single .exe or to split it at various sizes were replaced with a single option to set the maximum file size between 3 MB and 4095 MB. 3 MB ensures that the installer base fits into the main setup.exe and 4095 MB keeps the setup.exe under Windows's 4 GB limitation for .exe files.
  • Media: File masks for files that DeployMaster should not attempt to compress because they will likely turn out to be incompressible, e.g. : *.png;*.jpg;*.gif;*.mp3;*.avi;*.zip.
  • Platform: If you deselect Windows 98 and ME then the generated installer will use Unicode, allowing the setup to display all languages correctly as well as install files with names that cannot be represented in the default code page on the user's system.
  • Project: Company name, application name, version number, and copyright are now stored in the setup's version resource, so this information will appear for the setup in the tiled view and in the file properties in Windows Explorer, instead of DeployMaster's information.
  • Project: Support DLL can now export "wide" versions of the functions that have char parameters. If a DLL exports both "ansi" and "wide" routines, only the "ansi" routines are used.
  • Setup: Check for truncated and damaged setups before starting the installation.
  • Setup: Use all CPU cores to decompress files if the setup is not split into multiple disks.
  • Vista & 7: DeployMaster now scales itself instead of letting Windows handle the scaling when the font size in Windows has been increased by more than 125% (i.e. the display resolution is more than 120 DPI) resulting in a much crisper appearance of DeployMaster.
  • Vista & 7: Request elevation when starting the actual installation rather than before the setup starts. That allows portable installations to be created by users without administrative privileges.
  • Other changes:
  • Platform: 64-bit and 32-bit are separate worlds.
  • You must use a 64-bit installer for 64-bit software, and a 32-bit installer for 32-bit software.
  • 32-bit software can't see 64-bit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE entries, and vice versa
  • http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305097
  • http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms684139(VS.85).aspx.

New in DeployMaster 3.3.4 (Sep 21, 2011)

  • Creating portable installations sometimes failed if the setup included shortcuts to files or URLs (which are ignored for portable installs).
  • Files that were in use during installation were not correctly scheduled to be replaced at reboot.
  • Progress meter in the installer was not updated while copying files.

New in DeployMaster 3.3.3 (Apr 26, 2011)

  • Files: Show the option to call regsvr32 for .ax files.
  • Project: Save only the 32x32 icon into the setup rather than the whole .ico file. Other sizes only take up needless space, and Vista-style icons can cause errors.
  • Project: You can now select an .exe or .dll file for the application icon. DeployMaster will extract the 32x32 size of the first icon from the file and put just the icon into the setup.
  • Selecting and deselecting components in the installer can now be done by pressing the space bar on the keyboard.
  • Uninstaller: If a key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER needs to be uninstalled, remove it for all users that are logged on.
  • When registering DLLs and OCX files, DeployMaster will wait no more than 10 seconds for the DLL to register itself and show an error message if it times out. If this happens, that likely indicates a bug in the DLL or that the DLL is incompatible with the version of Windows it is being installed on.

New in DeployMaster 3.3.2 (Jul 7, 2010)

  • New features:
  • /nodesktop command line switch to tell the installer not to create desktop shortcuts. Primarily intended to be used in combination with /silent to deploy software automatically without putting anything on the desktop.
  • 3rd party: Detect and install version 4.0 of the .NET framework.
  • Improvement:
  • Installer and uninstaller tell Windows to refresh the desktop when they're done to make sure Windows immediately picks up on shortcuts that were added or removed.
  • Bug fix:
  • DeployMaster 3.3.x failed to close if it could not save its .language files in %APPDATA%\JGsoft\DeployMaster.

New in DeployMaster 3.3.1 (May 12, 2010)

  • Improvements:
  • 3rd party: Warn if the file name of a 3rd party setup is the same as the file names on the Media tab. That causes DeployMaster to see its own setup.exe as the 3rd party setup.exe and re-launch its own setup.
  • Use regsrv32.exe instead of calling DllRegisterServer to register DLL and OCX files.
  • Bug fix:
  • Media: Turning the option to create an autorun.inf file on or off did not enable the Save button.

New in DeployMaster 3.3.0 (May 12, 2010)

  • Improvements:
  • Windows Vista & 7: Language files are now saved in the application data folder under your Windows user profile instead of in Program Files, so they can be modified without administrator rights. Installing version 3.3.0 on top of an older version automatically moves your .language files so any changes you made to them are preserved.
  • Windows 7: Setup programs created with DeployMaster and their uninstallers now contain a manifest that advertises Windows 7 compatibility to prevent false warnings from the Program Compatibility Assistant on Windows 7.
  • Windows 7: Save VersionMajor and VersionMinor values with the uninstallation data to satisfy Windows 7 Logo requirements.
  • Bug fixes:
  • 3rd Party: If the last 3rd party package was one to be skipped (new ability in version 3.2.0), then artifacts of the 3rd party setup prompt remained visible as DeployMaster proceeded with the installation.
  • Languages: Changes to the contents of a language weren't saved unless you changed languages (and then changed it back as desired).

New in DeployMaster 3.2.0 (Jun 19, 2009)

  • Improved installation of 3rd party setups

New in DeployMaster 3.1.0 (Feb 25, 2009)

  • Create portable installations without administrator rights

New in DeployMaster 3.0.0 (Jan 18, 2008)

  • Create portable installations on removable drives; install the .NET framework and any other 3rd party library or application