[Bug 28975] InstallShield-based installers need apphelp.dll.ApphelpCheckInstallShieldPackage stub (YouSendIt, Nokia S60 5th Edition SDK 1.0)

[wine-bugs at winehq.org]

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28975

Anastasius Focht <focht at gmx.net> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
           Severity|normal                      |major

--- Comment #9 from Anastasius Focht <focht at gmx.net> 2011-11-06 14:41:09 CST ---
Hello,

@André: thanks, unfortunately your patchset was too late for 1.3.32 hence there
will be a number of blockers/dupes here...

Raising importance as it will probably affect lots of installers that are
InstallShield engine based.

This API was probably introduced at the time Windows Vista was developed which
tend to broke older InstallShield versions.
Due to market share/widespread use of InstallShield, Microsoft probably gave
the vendor this API to advertise themselves to Windows Application
Compatibility Engine/Layer.
Based on installer package/product id which can be extracted given the package
an application shim could be enabled if a "bad" product installer was detected
(shim database/sdb).

Application shimming (compatibility) is a pretty interesting technology and the
main reason why many thousands of (broken) apps/games not designed for future
Windows versions still work (Vista/7).
These apps rely on specific Windows Version implementations, broken Windows API
behaviour, abuse the Windows API etc.
>From what I gathered from reading various blogs/crystal ball/MSDN many
application specific "hacks" are implemented in shims, keeping the main code
base clean, allowing for further improvement/rewrite/fixing in newer Windows
versions.

Shimming is an interesting feature that might be considered in future Wine
versions.

Regards

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