I've been given a Visual Studio solution someone else made. It has an installer project using Installshield LE. The installer builds fine but it makes an exe and I'm supposed to make an msi. I know the guy who wrote the project would generate msi files but I just don't see any options to do it. Is this doable with LE?
Go to step 6 and drill down to the Single Image release type. Set Compression on the build tab to yes and set setup launcher on the setup.exe tab to no. Build this release.
Thanks for the help, guys. These tips sorted my issue.
After so many 1990s-looking releases, its amazing that InstallShield finally went to the trouble to make their Visual Studio integration so friendly... yet hid this vital option away.
I'm adding a screenshot, to help other users.
I've solved it by using the following
By using SingleImage as the build type
Under - Setup.exe tab (Build | Setup.exe | Signing)
Select Setup Launcher = No.
The build from InstallShield will come out as a .MSI file under
(\RELEASE_PROJECT\Express\SingleImage\DiskImages\DISK1)
Related
I'm using Visual Studio 2013 professional and InstallShield 2015 Limited Edition.
I have a SafeNet stick and I know how to sign files from the command line.
My Visual Studio solution contains 4 projects: unmanaged Dll, managed Dll (wrapper around the first one), wpf application and an installshield setup project.
My setup output is singleimage (setup.exe file) that contains everything what I need to run and use my application.
The question: how can I define installshield to sign ALL needed files and a setup.exe itself?
Google is not answering my question :(
Ok, I found the part of the solution.
1) In Release section of the setup project (in solution explorer) click on the SingleImage section.
2) At the right section you'll see three tabs, the last one is Signing tab.
The problem is that you need to provide the pfx file.
Creation this file from the SafeNet usb stick is my problem now :)
UPDATE:
My suggestion is to sign the files in post build events in Visual Studio Project properties.
After that sign the setup file and that's all.
I'll try avoid of using InstallShield builder :(
I am creating an MSI package using Visual Studio and I have added in the SQL Express set up, it all works fine, except I would like to automatically open the SQL Express when the application has finished installed.
I did a bit of investigating and saw an option in Visual Studio in the properties window for the Setup named PostBuildEvent. Can I add a custom macro here to boot the SQL Express installer? If so, how would I go about doing this? And if not, does anyone have any suggestions on how I could make this work?
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated, thank you!
The post build event runs on your machine immediately after the build of the MSI file completes. It will run code immediately after Visual Studio is completes building the MSI. It will not run when an end-user installs the application.
To have the installer run code after the end-user installs the application use a Custom Action.
i want to make a uninstall option in my C# program?
can u help for this?
and provide some code also
If you deploy your application via a Visual Studio Setup and Deployment Project, an uninstaller will come standard with the installation. It will be available in the Add/Remove Programs of the control panel.
You can create an installation project which will automatically add support for uninstallation. Under Other Project Types you have Setup and Deployment. There is InstallShield LE and Visual Studio Installer. If you choose Setup Project under Visual Studio Installer project, you will have uninstall as part of the built project.
see this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-xFLltALg0
If you want the executable to remove itself. aka self-destruct. Check out this blog http://blog.pedroliska.com/2010/05/20/c-self-destruct-windows-app/
InstallShield Limited Edition comes as free addition to Visual Studio 2010 users. It has many options on how to configure installation package, but I am having an issue to figure out if is possible to create a self-extracting setup with LE. Alternative to this can be 7-zip SFX add-on, NSIS, etc.
I've since imaged a new dev machine and installed InstallShield 2010LE. Through the standard Visual Studio (solution) Configuration Manager you have the choice of build CD-ROM, DVD-5 and Single Image ( self extracting EXE ).
Windows's own IExpress.exe can also be used for creating a self-extracting installer.
I don't have InstallShield LE 2010 installed on this machine so it's hard to answer. Why don't you install it and find out? My guess is InstallShield supports this. If anything it might not support an uncompressed MSI in order to try to prevent you from coloring outside of the lines.
Or you could just call them. Worst that will happen is you'll get spam from them trying to get you to upgrade.
I've created setups for all my Delphi tools with Inno Setup for years. Now some users rather want an MSI installation package, so they can deploy the setups from a central server to all workstations.
How do I create one? Do I have to buy Visual Studio or some other product?
You can use Wix (which is free) to create an MSI installation package.
WiX Tutorial - Creating an Installer MSI with Wix
If you don't understand Windows Installer then I highly recommend The Definitive Guide to Windows Installer. You can't really use WiX without understanding MSI. Also worth downloading is the Windows Installer 4.5 SDK.
If you don't want to learn the Windows Installer fundamentals, then you'll need some wizard type package to hide all the nitty gritty details and hold your hand. There are plenty of options, some more expensive than others.
InstallShield
Advanced Installer
MSI Factory
etc..
However still I'd suggest picking up the above book and taking some time to understand what's going on "under the hood", it'll really help you figure out what's going wrong when customers start complaining that something is broken with the setup :)
You can use Visual Studio - that's paid.
You can use https://www.advancedinstaller.com/ - that has a free edition.
You can use http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page - for example Winamp uses this installer - and is very configurable and is Open Source.
Google "Freeware MSI installer".
e.g. https://www.advancedinstaller.com/
Several options here:
http://rbytes.net/software/development_c/install-and-setup_s/
Though being Windows, most are "shareware" rather than truly free and open source.
In Visual Studio (including the free community editions) you can install the Microsoft Visual Studio Installer Projects extension [1] which allows you to create an MSI installation package. To install it from within Visual Studio:
Go to Extensions -> Manage Extensions in the menu bar
Search for Installer Projects in the search box
Select Microsoft Visual Studio Installer Projects and hit Download
Restart Visual Studio
Once the extension is installed, you'll create a new project that will contain all of the files and settings for the MSI. To do this:
Go to File -> New -> Project in the menu bar
Change the drop down menus visible to show All languages, All platforms, and All project types respectively
Scroll down in the project type list and towards the bottom select Setup Wizard: Create a Windows Installer project with the aid of a wizard.
Hit Next.
Work through the prompts to choose the installer project name and location. Choose Create a setup for a Windows application at Step 2 and in Step 3 choose the executable and other files that should be included in the MSI (hit Add..). At the end, hit Create.
To build the actual MSI go to Build -> Build Solution in the top menu, and you should see a message like the following in the Output window:
Build started...
------ Starting pre-build validation for project 'Setup1' ------
------ Pre-build validation for project 'Setup1' completed ------
------ Build started: Project: Setup1, Configuration: Debug ------
Building file 'C:\Users\zelda\Source\Repos\Setup1\Setup1\Debug\Setup1.msi'...
Packaging file 'test.exe'...
========== Build: 1 succeeded or up-to-date, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========
What's created by default is a very basic MSI, but for additional configuration like creating custom actions, adding/changing registry keys, configuring the user interface associated with the MSI, etc., see the full documentation [2]
[1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=VisualStudioClient.MicrosoftVisualStudio2017InstallerProjects
[2] https://aka.ms/vdproj-docs
You can use "Visual studio installer project" and its free...
This is very easy to create installer and has GUI.(Most of the freeware MSI creation tool does not have a GUI part)
You will find many tutorials to create an installer easily on the internet
To install. just search Visual Studio Installer Project in your Visual Studio
Visual Studio-> Tools-> Extensions&updates ->search Visual Studio Installer Project. Download it and enjoy...
Look for Windows Installer XML (WiX)
You can purchase InstallShield, the market leader for creating installation packages. It offers many features beyond what you get with freeware solutions.
Warning: InstallShield is insanely expensive!
In my opinion you should use Wix#, which nicely hides most of the complexity of building an MSI installation pacakge.
It allows you to perform all possible kinds of customization using a more easier language compared to WiX.