Visual Patch 3.9 - Last Minute Notes

Product Name:	Visual Patch 3.9
Version:	3.9.0.0 - (what has changed?)
Release Date:	January 12, 2024
Distribution:	Unauthorized distribution prohibited. See License.txt for details.

Contact Information
Getting Started
Release History
Copyright & Trademark Notice

Contact Information

Contact Information
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Thank you choosing Visual Patch! To get the most out of this software, we recommend that you start by reading the User's Guide. We’ve included hundreds of pages of instruction and tutorial in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. It’s a great place to start.

You’ll find a shortcut to the User's Guide on the Start menu under Start -> Programs -> Indigo Rose Corporation -> Visual Patch 3.0.

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We’d love to hear what you think of Visual Patch 3.0. Please stop by our online forums and tell us what you think. You’ll find links and other product information at http://www.indigorose.com.

Release History

3.9.0.0 - January 12, 2024

Feature: Added support for Windows 11, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2022 to the System.GetOSName action.
Feature: Added support for Windows 11, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2022 to the System Requirements in the Project Settings dialog.
Feature: Made SHA-256 code signing the default, as SHA-1 Authenticode and timestamping services were deprecated in early 2023.
Feature: Added the ability to dual-sign setups (SHA-256 and SHA-384 or SHA-512).
Feature: Added support for certificates stored in the personal store, for use with OV and EV certificates with private keys on tokens.
Feature: Added a Show Signing Window feature to the Code Signing dialog for hardware tokens like Thales SafeNet Authentication that require a visible window in order for the PIN/Password prompt to display correctly.
Fix: Made the String.GetFormattedSize action return properly formatted strings for sizes superior to 1024 GB (1 TB).
Fix: Fixed an issue in the Dialog.FolderBrowse action.

3.8.2.0 - January 31, 2019

Feature: Added SHA-256 code signing support.
Feature: Added the ability to dual-sign patches (SHA-256 and SHA-1).
Feature: Added a password field for the code signing certificate(s).
Feature: Added a few items to the System.GetOSProductInfo action's constants.
Feature: Made it so a key file can identify an older version even if there is no corresponding file with the same name in a later version. This permits version detection to work when key files have different names across versions. You may now use a key file to identify a version even if that filename is not present in the latest version.
Change: Removed support for signing with signcode.exe, instead use signtool.exe.
Fix: Enabled GDI scaling on Windows 10 (1703) or later for Visual Patch's design environment. This improves how the interface looks in high dpi environments.
Fix: Fixed screen previews and the welcome dialog on Windows 10 (1703) or later when GDI scaling is enabled.
Fix: Fixed the order in which controls are drawn in the custom screen editor.
Fix: Fixed the Arrange tools in the custom screen editor so they work correctly. For example, choosing Arrange > Bring to Front now correctly brings the selected control to the front.
Fix: Fixed how controls are selected by left clicking in the custom screen editor. It is now possible to select a control when it is in front of another one, e.g. a radio button in front of a group box can now be selected. Clicking where controls overlap will select the control that is closest to the front (unless one of the controls is already selected).
Fix: Made it so clicking on a control that is in front of the selected control in the custom screen editor does not change which control is selected (unless you hold the Shift key while clicking). This is so you can interact with a control that is covered by another one. To select a different control that is above the currently selected control, first click somewhere else to deselect the current control. Alternatively, you can hold the Shift key to select the control that is closest to the front even if it's on top of another control that is already selected.
Fix: Made it so right-clicking on a selected control in the custom screen editor does not deselect the control. For example, you may now select a control with the drop-down menu and right-click on it to move it to the front, even if it is behind other controls.
Fix: Fixed a bug where if a custom screen contained a GroupBox control, tabbing through the controls failed to work properly.
Fix: Fixed an issue where Visual Patch silent patches would fail on Windows Server OS's without a GUI due to the system file 'oledlg.dll' not being present. This fix only applies to silent patches. Patches with an interface still require that system component.
Fix: Made an attempt to prevent an occasional build error from occurring during the manifest injection step and final executable generation.
Fix: Made the Registry.GetValue action able to read REG_MULTI_SZ values containing null characters within it's data.
Fix: Fixed an issue where the File.Move action's "IncludeHiddenFiles" parameter default didn't match what was being used. It now uses the correct value from the prototype when not defined.
Fix: Addressed an issue in the File.Copy and File.Move actions where if the path contained erroneous backslashes in some locations, it would result in unpredictable file attributes being set. It may also result in the source folder being deleted in the File.Move action.
Fix: Fixed a bug in the 'File.Install', 'File.Copy' and 'File.Move' actions where if the source file and destination file were the same, the source file would be deleted.
Fix: Fixed a bug where temporary font files were not be deleted from the patch's temp folder after the patch completes.
Fix: Fixed a bug where registering/unregistering fonts could hang the patch on some systems.
Fix: Fixed a bug in 'IRScriptEditor.exe' where if you clicked on the keyword tooltip in the editor a crash would occur. Updated version to 2.0.1003.0.
Fix: Fixed a bug where command line arguments starting with 'S' would cause the patch to be run silent if enabled.
Fix: Made a change to prevent errors that may occur due to anti-virus scanning when launching the patch.
Fix: Fixed a bug where files within folder names starting with '.' would be skipped when adding folder trees of files to the project or using folder references which would cause them to be skipped during the build.
Fix: Changed the behavior of the design-time properties of the Edit control on Custom screens to make it clear that 'Multiline' is not supported for 'Password' input styles. The Password input style is only valid for single-line edit controls.
Fix: Changed references in Visual Patch from Windows Server 10 to Windows Server 2016.
Fix: Added an empty string check for the base folder path in the global function 'g_FillComboBoxWithShortcutFolders' in '_Global_Functions.lua'.

3.8.1.0 - February 20, 2015

Fix: Fixed a bug where projects created with version 3.7.0.0 or older would fail to load if they contained a GroupBox screen control.
Fix: Minor enhancement to Visual Patch's commercial installer.

3.8.0.0 - February 19, 2015

Feature: Added Windows 10/Server 10 support to Visual Patch's design environment and supporting files.
Feature: Added Windows 10/Server 10 support to Visual Patch's runtime and supporting files.
Feature: Added Windows 10/Server 10 (Server version is tentative) to the OS conditions tree.
Feature: Added Windows 10/Server 10 to the System.GetOSName action.
Feature: Updated VP's documentation where applicable.
Feature: Performed Windows 10 compatibility testing on VP's design and runtime using the Windows 10 Technical Preview.
Feature: Added support for Right-to-left text on patch screens based on the RTL value in the language map.
Fix: Updated distributed upx.exe to version 3.91.0.0.
Fix: Updated the System.GetOSProductInfo action with 16 additional constants.
Fix: Fixed a crashing bug in Visual Patch's design environment that only occurred when running the Windows 10 Technical Preview on a Virtual Machine. It occurred while adding files.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the 'All Future OSs' OS condition checkbox would fail to load it's saved state correctly.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the second optional argument of the 'Window.Close' action was mistakenly required at runtime.
Fix: Fixed a couple issues in the 'File.Copy' action where the 'AbortOnFail' parameter wasn't working properly, and progress wasn't handled correctly upon failure.
Fix: Fixed a bug where projects containing a GroupBox screen control would cause the project file format to be incorrect.
Fix: Fixed a bug where a missing file would be reported as an error during the build even if it wasn't a member of the specified build configuration.
Fix: Updated zip plugin to version 1.0.1.0.

3.7.0.0 - September 11, 2013

Feature: Updated Visual Patch's design environment to support Windows 8.1.
Feature: Updated Visual Patch's runtime manifests to support Windows 8.1.
Feature: Updated the OS condition tree to include Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.
Feature: Updated the 'System.GetOSName' action with Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.
Feature: Added the global lua boolean variable "_UseSystemCharacterSet" that can be used to override the font script setting when using custom fonts on screens. This will make the patch use the system's default character set instead.
Fix: Fixed a bug in the ListBox screen where e_Details.Index was returning an incorrect value from the On Ctrl Message screen event.
Fix: Fixed a bug in the 'DlgScrollingText.AppendLine' action where setting "ScrollToEnd" to false would not function correctly
Fix: Fixed several issues in the OS conditions tree where checked states were incorrect in certain situations.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the List Box screen was not laying out the bottom text properly.
Fix: Fixed a redrawing issue with the Scrolling Text screen control on Windows 8.
Fix: Fixed a bug in the 'DlgScrollingText.SetProperties' action where some settings may cause the control to disappear.
Fix: Made it so that exported screens are saved in a "Screens" folder located in the all user profile of Application Data.
Fix: Made it so that exported themes are saved in a "Themes" folder located in the all user profile of Application Data.
Fix: Updated the constants for the 'System.GetOSProductInfo' action.
Fix: Made it so that the extracted patch runtime is code signed in addition to the final patch executable.
Fix: Fixed a bug where in some cases if a patch's source file contained a hidden attribute, it would fail to include the file in the patch causing an error at runtime.
Fix: Small change to a file rollback log file error message.

3.6.0.0 - July 23, 2012

Feature: Added support for Windows 8 based on product testing in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, and Windows 8 Release Preview.
Feature: Added Windows 8 compatibility GUID to Visual Patch's design and runtime manifests.
Feature: Added Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2012 to the supported list of OS file conditions.
Feature: Added support to the System.GetOSName action for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.
Feature: Added the X, Y, Width, and Height indicators to the settings tab of the custom screen properties.
Feature: Added a multiline checkbox to the custom screen's Edit control, as well as to the DlgEditField.GetProperties and DlgEditField.SetProperties actions.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the 'Service Name' and 'Display Name' were incorrectly being compared in a case-sensitive manner in Service actions.
Fix: Fixed a bug in the MSI.GetFileVersion action where improper results were being returned.
Fix: Fixed a bug where a control would not be selected after adding it to a custom screen.
Fix: Made it so that import .REG file option would insert the text at the current carat position in the code editor.
Fix: Fixed a bug where file icons would not be shown in the file list in specific situations.
Fix: Fixed a bug where and endless draw loop could be casued by RadioButtons who were not correctly sized in certain DPI settings.
Fix: Fixed a bug with the way that custom controls were added to the screen via the Insert button.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the DlgListBox.GetItemProperties action could not retrieve the ItemData properly.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the ComboBox control could lose it's item data leaving a screen and then returning to it.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the Folder.DeleteTree action callback function was not being called.
Fix: Added an initial automatic seeding for the first use of the Math.Random action.
Fix: Fixed a bug where Edit Field controls using the Input mask Input Style were not using their session variable to properly initialize themselves.
Fix: Fixed a bug where System.RegisterFont action would sometimes hang on certain systems.
Fix: Fixed a bug in the File.Delete action where the "AbortOnFail" parameter wasn't working properly.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the File.RunAs action was not passing one of its arguments properly.

3.5.2.0 - July 12, 2010

Feature: Added a "(plugin)" suffix in the Action Wizard for action categories that were added by a plugin.
Feature: Added SW_HIDE window mode to File.Run, File.RunAs and Shell.Execute actions.
Feature: Added support for Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Servers 2008 SP2 to the OS Conditions tree.
Fix: Fixed a bug where File.Find action would sometimes fail when the executable was on a CD-ROM.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the last screen in a sequence was not freeing its font data at the correct time.
Fix: Fixed a bug where if the File.GetShortName action failed, a string containing garbage would be returned. Failure can occur if the file does not exist.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the second parameter of the Table.Sort action wasn't being handled properly.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the _IgnoreInvalidCertificate global would not ignore certificate revocation errors.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the spell checker would not work properly if the text being checked was longer than 1000 characters.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the Application.LoadScript action would fail if Lua was installed.
Fix: Fix: Fixed an issue where languages containing no Secondary IDs were not being mapped if a secondary ID was being returned at runtime. Now if the language in the language map map has no secondary IDs, it will map to that language if the Primary IDs match regardless of the secondary ID detected.
Fix: Made it so that VisualPatch would block system reboots while the patch is in progress.

3.5.1.0 - November 03, 2009

Feature: Added support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 in the Operating System condition tree.
Feature: Added the multi-line edit dialog to the IR Script Editor.
Feature: Added support for Windows Server 2008 R2 to the System.GetOSName action.
Feature: Increased the maximum possible number of characters that can read in when using the INIFile.GetValueNames action.
Feature: Added the ability to rename design-time constants.
Feature: Added Windows 7 compatibility section to application manifests.
Fix: Fixed a bug where comments were causing errors when importing .REG files.
Fix: Fixed a bug where Scrolling HTML controls could not be shown or hidden.
Fix: Fixed a bug where screen images located outside of a project theme when override project theme is selected weren't being saved properly.
Fix: Fixed a bug where REG_DWORD values larger then MAX_INT were not being written to the registry properly.
Fix: Fixed a bug where focus was being lost on various dialogs in the design GUI after browsing for new files.
Fix: Updated the autoproxy support to correctly use the INTERNET_PER_CONN_AUTOCONFIG_URL setting.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the click to skip option was not working for Dialog.SplashImage actions.
Fix: Fixed a bug where a final CRLF was throwing off the Base64 decoding.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the HTTP.Sumbit action was not working properly with invalid certificates and the _IgnoreInvalidCertificate variable set to true.
Fix: Fixed a bug in the Dialog.SplashScreen action where second delays greater than 59 seconds were not working.
Fix: Made it so that the File.Install action would not overwrite files protected by WFP.
Fix: Changed the default folder used for the log file to be the temporary directory as opposed to being the Windows directory.
Fix: Fixed a bug where HTTP.TestConnection was not using AutoProxy or setting proxy information properly.
Fix: Fixed a bug where scrolling text controls on customs screens did not have the correct Id.
Fix: Removed the custom screen from the "Progress" screen section.
Fix: Fixed a bug where many of the right-click options in the custom screen editor did not work.
Fix: Made it so that the last selected build configuration is maintained per session in Visual Patch.
Fix: Fixed a bug where design-time constants were not being expanded on "Progress" screens.
Fix: Added support for Windows restart messages in Visual Patch's design environment.
Fix: Fixed a bug where design-time constants were not properly saving newly edited values when deleting design-time constants.
Fix: Fixed a bug in the DlgProgressBar.SetProperties action's description text where "Enabled" was shown instead of "Visible."
Fix: Fixed a bug where the patch designer was unable to trigger a rollback if the last file in a version was skipped because it was not found.
Fix: Added a build warning if a file added from a folder reference already exists (same source location) in the file list resulting in it being skipped.
Fix: Made it so that files protected via Windows File Protection are skipped during a patch.
Fix: Added the ability to use the heading font for Static Text controls on Custom screens.

3.5.0.0 - March 02, 2009

Feature: One of your most asked for features is finally here. You now have the freedom to create your own custom dialogs from scratch! Start off with an empty wizard dialog and then drop whatever controls you require onto it. Resize them, reposition them, call script code and much more. It's fully featured and totally visual. When one of the built-in dialogs doesn't get you where you want to go, the new visual dialog editor is sure to fit the bill. To use this exciting new feature, look for the "Custom" screen type in the screen gallery.
Feature: Added two new actions for the new Group Box control on custom screens, DlgGroupBox.GetProperties and DlgGroupBoxSetProperties.
Feature: Added a new action called "System.GetOSProductInfo" that gets the product type for the operating system (only supported on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008).
Feature: Added several more folders to the Shell.GetFolder action including: SHF_MYMUSIC, SHF_MYMUSIC_COMMON, SHF_MYPICTURES, SHF_MYPICTURES_COMMON, SHF_MYVIDEOS, SHF_MYVIDEOS_COMMON, SHF_COMMON_DOCUMENTS.
Feature: Added Windows 7 to the System.GetOSName action.
Feature: Made it so that invalid certificates can be ignored through the use of an undocumented variable called _IgnoreInvalidCertificate.
Fix: Fixed a bug where File.GetSize would return the incorrect file size for files larger then 4.7GB.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the Shell.Execute action was setting an incorrect error code.
Fix: Fixed a bug were an incorrect error message would be shown at design-time if "Load from file" was selected for a web page on the Scrolling Text screen and the local file did not exist.
Fix: Fixed the language mapping for the Croatian language (a problem with secondary IDs) and added Bosnian to the language map.
Fix: Fixed a bug where progress bars were not redrawing properly on non-themed operating systems on Windows Vista or greater.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the read-only style for edit fields was not properly being set or removed when the control was enabled at runtime.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the design environment would crash when working with screens in certain situations.
Fix: Made it so that the HTTP Error Dialog will be displayed (if allowed) if an invalide certificate is encountered.
Fix: Fixed a bug where blank default text for a ComboBox control would not initially set the session variable attached to it.

3.0.3.0 - August 21, 2008

Feature: Added XP SP3 and Server 2008 to the OS conditions.
Feature: Added Windows Server 2008 to the System.GetOSName action.
Feature: Added a new parameter called "WaitForReturn" to the Shell.Execute action as well as a return code.
Feature: Added support for certificates during HTTP downloads.
Feature: Added the local application data folder (SHF_APPLICATIONDATA_LOCAL) to the Shell.GetFolder action.
Feature: Added the "Force Install" property to the column manager.
Fix: Fixed a bug where process enumeration would not be able to get the filename of a process ID if the calling application is running under a user account on Vista (UAC) and the process it is querying is running elevated.
Fix: Made an addition that would prevent folders from being created with paths containing leading or trailing spaces.
Fix: Fixed a bug in the DlgEditField.SetProperties action that would cause the setup to crash in certain scenarios.
Fix: Fixed a bug in the HTTP.Download action that would write errors to the log file pertaining to the status dialog if the patch was run in silent mode.
Fix: Made it so that white space is trimmed from Session Variables at design time.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the Dialog.SplashImage action would create a taskbar representation even when the application's taskbar settings were set to hidden.
Fix: Fixed a problem where text on the Buttons screen would sometimes not be sized correctly.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the escape key closed the status dialog, but did not stop the processing of the action. Now if the escape key is pressed, and the cancel button is visible, it will cancel the process. If the cancel button is not visible, it will be ignored.
Fix: Fixed a bug where UNC paths could cause Visual Patch to take a very long time to load a project file.
Fix: Fixed a bug where specifying a proxy table in the HTTP.DownloadSecure() action would sometimes cause a crash.
Fix: Fixed a bug where HTTP.Download() action could cause a crash in very specific auto-proxy situations.
Fix: Fixed a bug in the System.GetMemoryInfo action where it was not reporting correct values for greater than 4 GB of RAM.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the font of the progress control was not being set properly.
Fix: Fixed a problem with one of the parameters in the MSI.EnumComponents action.
Fix: Fixed a bug where empty registy keys would not be imported from .REG files.
Fix: Fixed some issues with the Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista SP1 OS conditions.
Fix: Fixed a bug where showing a button on the Edit Fields screen that was previously not visible would cause drawing issues.
Fix: Fixed an issue on 64-bit OS's where creating diff files larger than 32MB would fail when generating a patch.
Fix: Fixed an issue where progress bars were not drawing properly on Windows Vista.
Fix: Made Radio Button and Check Box controls on screens draw better on Windows Vista.
Fix: Passed the output from the selected code signing tool to the build output window. This is helpful when errors occur.
Fix: Fixed a bug where if you had additional themes, the last theme or default would be incorrect in the project wizard combo box.
Fix: Fixed a bug where if a file in your file list was excluded from the build, but also existed in a Folder Reference, it would be included in the patch.
Fix: Fixed an issue where patching a full copy of a file would cause the file's time to not reflect any time zone differences in the file's properties.
Fix: Fixed a validation bug on the Resources tab of the Build Settings dialog where you could check the "Use custom icon" option but not specify a file.
Fix: Fixed some small issues in the Indigo Rose Script Editor application.

3.0.2.0 - November 26, 2007

Feature: Added the Indigo Rose Script Editor application. This new stand-alone program allows you to edit action scripts with support for syntax highlighting, intellisense code completion and help file integration. This application is a file named "IRScriptEditor.exe" and is located in Visual Patch's program folder.
Feature: Added a new category of actions called "MSI" containing 36 new actions that leverage the Windows Installer service technology on the user's system. These actions make it easy to query the state of products, features and components on the end-user's system that were installed with a Windows Installer package.
Feature: Added a new action called Dialog.ComboBox. This action presents a dialog box with a combo box control on it.
Feature: Added an optional third argument to XML.SetValue called "WriteCDATA". It is a boolean argument and is false by default if not specified. If true, the data will be written as a CDATA section.
Feature: Added Windows Vista SP 1 to the OS conditions.
Fix: Fixed a bug where legacy files were being considered for versions that weren't included in the patch.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the "Delete legacy files" feature always used last version tab, even if not included in build.
Fix: Fixed a bug in the g_EnsureProgramIsClosed function in "_Global_Functions.lua" where it was searching for the program name instead of the process name.
Fix: Fixed a bug where RadioButtons and CheckBoxes would incorrectly be drawn in a bold font.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the Japanese sublanguage was set to 0 instead of 1.
Fix: Made it so that character case is ignored in paths and filenames when searching for legacy files.
Fix: Made it so that the left margin would be enabled or disabled when you toggle bookmarks in the code editor using the keyboard shortcut. If there is at least one bookmark the left margin will be enabled, if there is none then it will be disabled.
Fix: Fixed a bug which would generate an error when updating the file dates to match the originals if the target file is read-only and we were internally setting it to read-only.
Fix: Fixed a bug where the end user would sometimes see an extra error message after they cancelled the patch.
Fix: Fixed a bug where files that were in-use during a patch would cause the patch to hang once it was complete.
Fix: Added additional details for some log error messages.

3.0.1.0 - September 5, 2007

Fix: Fixed a bug where all icon (.ico) files added to the file list would have the same icon as the first one in the project. Now each one correctly has its own icon.
Fix: Fixed a bug introduced in Visual Patch 3.0 which resulted in an error 408 when decoding some files.
Fix: Updated the Danish language file.
Fix: Updated the Portuguese language file.
Feature: Added the ability to code sign the patch with the newer tool "SignTool.exe". This feature's settings can be found on the "Code Signing" tab of the "Build Settings" dialog and in the "Code Signing" section of the Preferences.

3.0.0.0 - August 1, 2007

Initial release.

Copyright & Trademark Notice

Visual Patch is a trademark of Indigo Rose Software Design Corporation. All other trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.