Action requested - Application Softblock implemented | Issue report ID341057

Hello,

I am a program manager with the Ecosystem Engineering team at Microsoft. At //BUILD/<http://www.buildwindows.com/> in September, Microsoft announced the availability of the Windows 8 Developer Preview. Please use the resources available at the BUILD site and begin testing your applications. For more information on how to verify the compatibility of your applications on Windows Developer Preview, please refer to the Windows and Windows Server Developer Preview Compatibility Cookbook<http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27416>

Our team drives the bug notification activity with our valued Windows partners. This email is to notify you that PostgreSQL's application/driver experienced compatibility issue(s) during internal Microsoft testing and has been blocked. Please note that this block may already be in the latest Windows Developer Preview build so your prompt attention to the issue is much appreciated.

<<<Partner Action>>>
Please read the issue description below and acknowledge receipt of this communication via a response to this email within 5 business days. Also, we request that you provide us with a URL pointing our mutual customers to the issue details or fix as soon as possible. Over a million users are already previewing the Windows Developer Preview build and this URL will be used to help deliver a great experience.

Here are the details of the Softblock implementations:
Compatibility Issue:
Product name: PostgreSQL 8.2

Description of the Problem: Installation fails with an error message "Malformed permissions property: 'langid' "

Detailed Steps to Reproduce the Problem:
1. Install x64/x86 Windows 8
2. Create user Abby with an administrator privilege & login with Abby
3. Start 'Secondary Logon' service before installation
4. Install the application
5. Accept all default options while installing
6. Wait for installation to completes
7. Observe

Actual Results: Prompts Error message "Malformed permissions property: 'langid' " (Install_Error1.jpg). Once we click Ok, the installation abrupts and Fatal Error (Install_Error2.jpg) will be shown.

Expected Results: Application should install successfully without any error message

Tester/Developer Notes:
This failure is due to a programming error in the "RunInitdb" MSI Custom Action. After entering pginstca!RunInitdb() the custom action dll calls msi!MsiGetPropertyA with parameter szName = "CustomActionData" in order to fill the szValueBuffer parameter with the returned CustomActionData string.

In the RunInitdb function, you can see that char *datadir is never initialized but it is used erroneously to check for null. This bug was fixed in the 8.3.x and 8.4.x branch. On Windows7, 8.2.x works even though datadir is pointing to garbage, the garbage just happens to be non-null. On Win8, somehow [ebp-14h]/datadir is NULL. Either way, this is what's breaking the installation.

The solution we have implemented is soft blocks on application setup and/or runtime. This serves only as a warning of known compatibility issues. The user can choose the option "Run program" and continue their operations normally.

Soft Block - Runtime and Setup Dialog box sample:
[Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: cid:image003(dot)png(at)01C9F64D(dot)14853A40]
If end users choose "Check for solutions online" we can take end users directly to a webpage provided by your company. This URL should contain a description of the problem, point to a newer version or a downloadable update (if you could provide the redirect URL or FWLink, instead of the actual site link, that will be sufficient too). Please refer to the "URL guideline" document attached in this communication which talks about what kind of URL that we are asking for you to provide us, to make this solution a meaningful one for the end users who faced with the issue.

The following Files, versions and scenarios will be blocked
Application

Blocked File

Version Information

Type of Block

URL Link

PostgreSQL 8.2

postgresql-8.2.msi

BIN_PRODUCT_VERSION="9.*"

Soft block

Needed

PostgreSQL 8.2

postgresql-8.2-int.msi

PRODUCT_CODE="{47F21113-0D9A-11D5-8132-00C04FA0998D}"
<DATA NAME="PackageCode" VALUETYPE="STRING" VALUE="{47F21112-0D9A-11D5-8132-00C04FA0998C}"/>

Soft block

Needed

If you are not the appropriate contact for this issue, please connect us with that individual as soon as possible. Please let me know if you have any questions and thank you for your continued engagement with Microsoft.

Sincerely,

Seiko Ishida
Microsoft ISV Readiness, EcoSystem Engineering Team
Program Manager
v-seishi(at)microsoft(dot)com<mailto:v-seishi(at)microsoft(dot)com>
Ref : 341057

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