[TECH DEBT] Windows MSI Installer uses VBScript custom action and VBScript is being deprecated by Microsoft

[johnl2323]

Description of the tech debt to be addressed, include links and screenshots

The 3006.9 salt-minion MSI installer package uses a VBScript custom action called "stopSalt".

salt/pkg/windows/msi/Product.wxs

Line 151 in f906ca5

<CustomAction Id="stopSalt" Script="vbscript">

Windows Visual Basic Scripting is deprecated as described in these deprecation posts:

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/deprecated-features-resources#vbscript
• https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/vbscript-deprecation-timelines-and-next-steps/4148301

The custom action should be refactored to use some other language/method like PowerShell or what other preferred method that WixToolKit supports.

The only reason this came to my attention is that we had some Windows 11 24H2 machines where we were trying to install or uninstall the 3006.9 salt-minion MSI package and the MSI log showed:

MSI (s) (58:30) [12:01:34:806]: Hello, I'm your 64bit Impersonated custom action server.
Action start 12:01:34: stopSalt.
DEBUG: Error 2738:  Could not access VBScript runtime for custom action 
MSI (s) (58:2C) [12:01:34:811]: Product: Salt Minion 3006.9 -- The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2738. The arguments are: , , 
Action ended 12:01:34: stopSalt. Return value 3.
Action ended 12:01:34: INSTALL. Return value 3.
MSI (s) (58:98) [12:01:34:816]: Note: 1: 1708 
MSI (s) (58:98) [12:01:34:816]: Product: Salt Minion 3006.9 -- Installation failed.

In our case, we determined that a WIndows privileged access management tool was blocking running of the VBScript custom action. This error did reveal that the vbscript custom action should be refactored before Microsoft completely removes VBScript support.

Versions Report

Affects 3006.9 and other versions

[twangboy]

The above PR migrates to using Jscript