[wix-devs] VS2017 extension - fix for issue 5597 creates more problems

[Rob Mensching]

Explicitly adding Heath as he owns vswhere.exe as well as this code in the WiX Toolset.

-----Original Message-----
From: wix-devs <wix-devs-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of Ivan Peev via wix-devs
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2019 9:58 AM
To: wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org
Cc: Ivan Peev <ivan.peev at gmail.com>
Subject: [wix-devs] VS2017 extension - fix for issue 5597 creates more problems

Hi Team,

We have recently determined installations created with WiX 3.14 beta are no longer able to properly discover (VS2017DEVENV) VS 2017 installations with
SKU: Microsoft.VisualStudio.Product.SQL

The above is perfectly valid SKU for a Microsoft tool named "SQL Server Data Tools". It uses VS as development and design environment. After further analysis we have determined the problem was caused by the fix made for issue 5597. I understand this fix was made to closely match a similar type of approach already used in vswhere tool. However, this doesn't necessarily mean vswhere implementation is correct either. I'm not too familiar with the BuildTools installation problem and why it necessitates such a fix, but at this point I believe the fix made is more harmful than the issue it tries to address.

I would like to ask the team to either completely remove the check made in InstanceInProducts function or if there is a valid reason for such check to exist, to make it more relaxed. Meaning instead of checking for specific SKUs, to instead check if the SKU starts with:
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Product

In this way a valid SKU like the one listed above will be properly detected. Looking forward to your feedback.

Regards,
Ivan