[wix-devs] WixComPlusExtension Status update 1

[Allen, Eric M. (Tax&Accounting Prof)]

Hello Wix-Devs.

This message serves the dual purpose of ensuring I can successfully mail the
mailing list. This is with regard to
https://github.com/wixtoolset/issues/issues/6061

Now that I'm refamiliarizing myself with the issues, and closer to where I
have my notes, I can recall that my basic plan was to allow a new child of
ComPlusApplication in the wxs. As an alternate to ComPlusAssembly, we would
have new element, strawman name ComPlusImportedComponent. Looking carefully,
it *might* be possible to allow ComPlusComponent at this level instead of only
as a child of Assembly, and based on the parent, determine whether we're
imported or installed. That's probably something to look into after getting
something working.
 
Regardless, the goal is to change the runtime behavior to call ImportComponent
instead of InstallComponent.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/comadmin/nf-comadmin-icomadmincatalog-importcomponent
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/comadmin/nf-comadmin-icomadmincatalog-installcomponent

I think I need to engineer a three-part plan.
1) The compiler needs to know to take the new element and put it in a table.
2) cpsched needs to query the table and emit data into the property used to
   communicate to cpexec.
3) cpexec needs to parse the property and send it down into an alternative for
   CpiConfigureAssemblies() in each of ComPlusInstallExecute(),
   ComPlusInstallExecuteCommit(), and ComPlusUninstallExecute().

There may need to be some additional supporting work to achieve those and keep
rollback where we want it.

One unrelated improvement I want to make is to the Documentation to indicate
that the ComPlusGroupInApplicationRole is expecting to cooperate with
UtilExtension's Group (likely similar for User). I'm not quite sure where to
go in order to make documentation edits.

Thank you for your time and feedback.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Eric M. Allen
Lead Software Developer

Thomson Reuters
the answer company

Phone: +1(734) 388-3878

eric.allen at tr.com

thomsonreuters.com