Visual Basic - How do I share my program? - windows

I am currently in the process of developing a program in Visual Basic. For now, I want to give the program to a few friends to test, make changes and then release it. But I don't exactly know how. I used the Publish feature in Visual Basic, but I don't exactly know what I'm supposed to do with it. It mentions things like installing from a disk and whatnot. I just plan to upload it to a file sharing website and release it that way.
EDIT: Using Visual Studio 2012

Use dropbox or any file sharing site :D

Related

Sync Extensions in Visual Studio 2013 between multiple machines

I'm sure this is a common problem, but I can't find much info about it.
Problem
I have a work computer, a home computer, a surface, and maybe some Azure VMs that i'd like my visual studio 2013 extensions synced across them. I seem to have to refresh/wipe a computer fairly often, and re-installing all the extensions I like to use is sort of a pain. I initally thought the new VS Profiles would do this, but apparently they only sync themes/general settings.
Attempted/Outdated Solutions
There used to be an extenstion that apparently did this
Extension Sync
But that looks like it's only for VS 2010. There was also a blog post that showed the location that the extensions were saved in.
http://www.larswilhelmsen.com/2012/01/08/syncing-visual-studio-extensions-and-settings-with-dropbox/
Which looked like a perfect solution, except in 2013/2013 the extensions location must have changed, and I cannot find them.
Question
Does anyone know how I could sync my extensions across multiple machines? Or possibly know the location that the Extensions are stored in and if it's possible to change that location to something like Dropbox/Skydrive/Google Drive?
If you've upgraded to Visual Studio 2015 there's a new extension that Microsoft just released for it called the Roaming Extension Manager.
It sounds like this is what you are looking for.
https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/7b421a95-c32c-4433-a2be-a41b276013ab?SRC=Home
There's something called the "User State Migration Tool" that is intended for preserving state in corporate PC desktop deployments for wipe-and-load, similar to your Azure scenario.
If you know something about the way the extension settings are saved (as shown in the blog), it's not too hard to construct an XML descriptor and use the deployment tool to apply the settings. The tool is command line so it is easily automated.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825142.aspx
This solution has increasing value when you have more than just Visual Studio to migrate into your VM.
there is new Extention for Visual Studio 2022 there which allow to import/export
Extension Manager

Anyone working at a company using Visual Studio Express 2010 instead of the pay version ? Does Express do enough?

I am. And I am wondering if there is any good reason to use professional .. Also for hobbiest programming...
So far the only thing I have missed is being able open certain .sln files that use testing projects and more advanced things.. but that not that big of a deal.. though I do miss testing
I was first surprised that the small consulting company I am working at does not use a paid edition of VS2010 (and SVN instead of TFS and Open Office instead of MS Office)
Anyone else working at a place like this? With the new Platform installer I like how I can get a new machine running and easily check and install what I need for free so that makes it even easier.
There's one good reason: Microsoft does not allow 3rd party extensibility in Express. Plug-ins like ReSharper add significant value to Visual Studio. I have trouble imagining doing professional work in a timely manner without them.

How do I set permissions on my VSTO outlook add-in?

I am trying to distribute my Outlook Add-In to the rest of the company.
I'm using Visual Studio 2008 Professional and Outlook 2003. In VS I used an installed template for Outlook 2003. It created a solution with BOTH a project and an installer.
I use the project and created an Add-In. It works GREAT on my PC in development. Now, I want to distribute it. Here's where things go haywire. The nice little installer they provide DOESN'T ACTUALLY WORK.
The installer runs and places the files where they are to go, but the add-in doesn't run. Instead it gets errors about not having permissions. The installer didn't automatically set the security settings for you.
No problem. You just have to set those settings... right? But no where can I find a simple list of those settings.
I've been to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb332051.aspx a thousand times from almost every possible link on the web. I've read every Microsoft paper that I can find on VSTO add-Ins. Unfortunately everything seems to reference some magic script... "Just include the sample code..."
[rant] IF A SECTION OF CODE OR AN ENTIRE SOLUTION IS REQUIRED TO DISTRIBUTE YOUR CODE IT IS NOT SAMPLE!! IT IS REQUIRED !!! [/rant]
There. I feel better.
Since I installed VS2008, I don't have the directory:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office SE Resources\Samples
No problem, right? Just DL it from microsoft. I've downloaded every "vstor.exe" that I can get my hands on. They all offer to "repair or uninstall" my current installation, but no matter what I choose, the vstor.exe crashes.
HELP!!!
I just want to know what I need to do (the manual steps, if necessary!!!!!) to get my friggin app distributed.
No magic "include this gizmo". No fifty-thousand page diatribes.
Anyone know how this is ACTUALLY done?!
I got it to work.
I was able to get a "sample code" update from Microsoft that allowed me to follow the walk-through.
I still think that's utterly ridiculous to HAVE to use sample code to easily distribute your app. However it is working at the moment.
The link I used was given to me by anonymous use on a different board. Whoever you are THANK YOU!!!!
Here is the link I was given:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6991E869-8D5B-45F4-91E7-B527BD236F4C&displaylang=en
This allowed me to actually get my hands on that mysterious "sample" code even though I use VS2008 Professional.

Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 & 2008 fails to create project, what other alternative do i have?

Visual C++ doens't work on my Vista. both 2010 and 2008 fails to create new projects. what alternative do i have ? I am sick of googling and trying out all the other hacks to fix it.
What other alternatives? If you're tired of trying the "hacks", I'd be looking at one or more of the following, in no particular order.
Use a different IDE.
Re-install Visual Studio.
Re-install Windows along with all your other apps (including VS).
Try installing Visual Studio in a newly created virtual machine.
Upgrade to XP :-)
Raise a support call with Microsoft.
Hire someone to fix the problem for you.
Provide more detail in this question.
Really, the possibilities are (figuratively) endless. There are any number of problems that could be causing this and the detail is a bit light on at the moment. What I tend to do is always have a fresh-install VM of XP lying around so I can test problems in environments that haven't been heavily changed from the originals.
No doubt we will be able to provide more help once the problem has been narrowed down some more. Sorry I can't help more than that at the moment.
I might guess that you are having trouble creating the projects because you don't have permission to the folder where you're trying to write them. Try right clicking on Visual Studio and saying 'Run as Administrator' then create the project.
You could use DevC++ or Eclipse as the compiler perhaps.

Any experience with the Visual Studio Shell?

Our company is considering using the Visual Studio Shell for one of our products.
Does anyone have any experience using it? Was it easy to work with? Did it save time? Are there any things that you weren't able to get it to do? Have you shipped anything with it?
A couple of points regarding the Isolated shell.
As you might know, there are two considerations when you use shell - Isolated Mode and Integrated Mode. (Read more from MSDN)
Isolated Shell can be used by organizations, to build applications that run side by side with other editions of Visual Studio.
Here are some points we learned,
trying to use shell for some of our
applications.
If you are planning to use Isolated
shell, you can't use Microsoft
Language Packages like C# and VB.NET
inside that.
Creating a package for your shell is
much like creating any other VS
Package.
You don't have support for Team
Explorer and VS Built in Source
Control access, in Isolated Shell
(See this post from Vin)
Though not directly related - If you are using VS SDK 1.1 to develop your packages - remember that the managed package framework is no longer available with the default distribution. So don't get surprised if your old packages can't load MPF files after moving to SDK 1.1. It has got moved to Codeplex as a separate download.
I played around a bit with it a couple of weeks ago, like every thing there is going to be a learn curve but if you study the examples a bit and have a look at a project on codeplex called Storyboard designer. I'm sure that you could pick it up, I found it very hard to find other examples on the net but I wasn't looking very hard.
I would say if you think that the shell can give you want you need I would go for it, it is a very handy interface to work with and if your targeting developers it is also a common interface for them, so it will feel natural.
I typically use Visual Studio Community on my PC for developing business intelligence solutions (databases, SSIS, SSAS, SSRS), then deploying to the server. A few weeks ago my managers requested we put Visual Studio on a server so that other developers and consultants could connect to the server and access Visual Studio.
Ultimately I installed SQL Server Data Tools (14.0.61021.0), which automatically installed Visual Studio Shell 2015. After installation, I launched Visual Studio Shell and tried doing some of the things I am used to doing in Community edition. I was able to do pretty much anything I was used to doing for BI Development.
Visual Studio Shell 2015:
Solution files with BI projects...
SSIS
Installing extensions & add-ons...
ANKHSVN for version control with SVN server
Visual Studio 2015 Color Theme Editor
Project deployment

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