I have an application which require .net 2 and .net 4 framework with adobe reader , i want to install them before software installation, how i am supposed to do this? Kindly please guide me towards right direction.
This is usually done by adding the packages you need as prerequisites for the main installer. Most commercial setup tools support prerequisites one way or another. Here is a list which can get you started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_installation_software
Pick a tool and try using it to create your installer and add prerequisites for it. I recommend Advanced Installer or InstallShield. If you want a free solution, you can try WiX.
What you need is basically a suite installation. The link I included shows how to do this with Advanced Installer (Disclaimer: I work on this tool). This is a commercial tool, but it saves you from learning to code Wix/NSIS projects, as it is completely GUI driven, thus you can built your installers without writing any code.
With NSIS as your installer, you can refer to the following pages for help with detecting and installing .NET:
How to ensure a required version of .NET Framework is installed
How to automatically download and install a particular version of .NET if it is not already installed
Related
I need to generate an installer for my application but first I need to know if it is already installed on the system node.js, npm and other applications
Is it possible to include the installation of node.js within the installation of my application and to know if it is already installed?
I'm using Visual Studio 2017 and a WPF project for desktop applications
When the application is already installed I need to execute npm commands in the console for this reason I need to install them before or verify if they are installed correctly
I appreciate any help.
UPDATE: Advanced Installer: How to install a NodeJS web app. Really excellent videos IMHO.
Best Effort: I don't know much about Node.Js, and hence should not answer. But I haven't seen anyone else answering these questions either. Despite lacking experience, let me try to give a few suggestions.
Windows Installer: There seems to be an MSI you can use to deploy Node.Js. And there are some alternatives listed. (Essentially Chocolatey and Scoop).
Heads-Up: I have answered a more specific deployment question relating to a failed installation of the Node.Js MSI earlier: Node.js installation (windows installer) terminates prematurely on windows 10 64-bit. This may or may not be fixed.
Deployment: To deploy a prerequisite MSI before your own package installation, you can use a deployment tool capable of bootstrapping / sequencing / downloading - in other words to run several installation operations in a given sequence wrapped as a setup.exe. Or you could investigate the Chocolatey approach. With regards to the deployment tools, I am a bit tired of writing up the list of capacities these tools have and don't have. I will link to a few flavors of answers for this:
Prime Suspects:
Installshield Suite Projects - screenshot of Suite projects.
WiX Burn Bundle - beware: link overload. But there is a "Hello Burn" example. Official WiX documentation.
Advanced Installer - Prerequisites View - screenshot of view available in some project types.
One of the above tools should be able to do the job. Only WiX Burn is free and open source. Sometimes you can save a lot of time by going with a commercial tool. Obviously especially if your company already have a license for such a tool (which can be a days work to figure out).
Free Tools: In the realm of free-tools only and alternatives to WiX, some people use self-extracting archives made with 7-Zip and WinRAR and some other tools described here: Combine exe and msi file in one installer. I don't like this for security reasons and other reasons as explained in the link.
Simplicity: For corporate deployment a simple batch file or some custom construct distributed via your deployment system (SCCM, etc...) could suffice. Or even a zip with an embedded batch file to kick off your zipped installers in sequence could work. All depends on your scenario. I wouldn't roll with such an approach for global distribution.
And here are several other answers where I describe available deployment tools:
How to create a MSI file which simply copies a directory to Program Files?
Visual Studio 2017 Installer Project - include VC++ 2015 Redistributable
Some Links:
Create MSI from extracted setup files
Error Creating a 7-zip installer package
How to create windows installer
What installation product to use? InstallShield, WiX, Wise, Advanced Installer, etc
Nodejs - Another installation is in progress
I need someone to point me to the right direction. I am new to Windows Installer and I have researched WiX, Advanced Installer, Inno Setup and NSIS and I don't even know the correct keyword to look for to see if they solve my problem.
What I want to accomplish is:
I have many PC software for user to download. Each of them is a separate install file (exe or msi).
What I hope to accomplish is to create a Custom Windows Installer that is able to accomplish these during installation process:
List all PC software available for user to download/install.
Allow user to choose which PC software they would like to download/install.
Download/Install these PC software for user.
Each PC software is hosted in different location from where user executes Custom Windows Installer.
Is there any solution that meets my requirement?
thank you all, appreciate your help.
You can do this for sure with Advanced Installer and WiX.
In Advanced Installer you have a built-in support for suite installations, as in the linked tutorial. In this example the applications are included in the setup package, but you can configure them to be downloaded from a URL too, during the installation. Our support team (disclaimer: I work on Advanced Installer) is very responsive so if you have any questions check out the forums or send an email to support.
In WiX there is a bundle support called Burn. Of course the learning curve for WiX is a little bit steeper, but that's how it is with OSS :)
I would prefer NSIS or Inno Setup. They are free (open source) and easy to learn.
They are script-based, so basically you can do everything. There are a lot of plugins available for them (for example, for downloading files), and you can adjust any aspect of the installer.
Create a custom page where you list the software
Selected software will be downloaded
Software will be executed
NSIS has its own language similar to C, and Inno Setup uses Pascal language for scripting.
I have a windows service that installs and runs fine. I want to create an installer/msi bundle that contains the windows service + other .dll files. And when I run the msi, I want it to run the service and the dlls'.
Currently I am at a point where I have a SetUp project which can install and uninstall the windows service that I created. And the dlls that are being used for a specific task also work fine individually. I want a package that would initiate these 2 tasks.
Do I need to use any third-party package creation wizards? Please guide me to achieve this.
Thanks in advance.
I don't understand what you mean by "specific task" regarding your DLLs, since DLLs are not executed directly... does your service depend on those DLLs?
I don't want to do commercial but I used http://www.advancedinstaller.com/ with the enterprise license (1k$) for very very easy complicated MSI functionality.
What are you doing with those DLLs? Just install them?
//
Well you can easily deploy your service and related DLLs, and registry settings, .... with that tool i mentioned, but its not for free. But this should be possible without it, I just don't know any tool that gives you an easy interface to creating such MSIs. I don't have any experience with the Visual Studio integraded MSI generation / install projects.
You could "try" the trial ;) The basic/free version does not support this.
I'm looking for Qt packager for my Qt application targeted for windows platform.
I need it to create a nice installer to deploy and distribute my product on windows PC.
Which is best and recommended FREE packager?
For packaging I use the WIX (Windows Installer XML) toolset.
There are several advantages to using WIX:
Free and open-source
Creates MSI files, which allows your application to be easily deployed across large networks and correctly uninstalls (also very important)
Supported and developed by Microsoft, it is used by several other Microsoft teams internally, e.g the Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview installer features some of the latest WIX features
XML configuration allows reuse of components of installers (sets of files, feature sets)
Several types of user interface, new wizard pages can be created
Integrates into Visual Studio
Integrates into MSBuild - can allow consistent packaging to ensure you don't ship debug versions
I have used WIX for installers at work and for my own projects at home.
It isn't as simple as other solutions to get started, but once you've created a simple package, you'll find it easy to add new features.
NSIS is the way to go in my opinion. Straight forward scripting, compatible with all Microsoft Operating Systems and with support for User Levels.
Plus it has a huge active forum for any specific help you may need. I use the HMNSIS editor to write the scripts and have not come across anything it hasn't been able to do yet!
Qt has nothing that can help you, but the free Windows installer package creator is without a doubt NSIS
Inno Setup is a another good, free, light-weight installer system.
There is the Qt Installer Framework. That is a link to the manual for it. It is multi-platform. With it, you write XML files in a directory structure for delivery of components in the directories, called packages. It has scripting. You then compile it into a setup for your target platform.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that they did not make it available to users of the Community edition until recent versions. When the earlier replies were written, it may well have been commercial version only.
Alas, nothing seems to warn you that you have to collect up components, nor tell you what they are, or even talk about the process; except that the 3rd. party, but free (Windows only), Dependency Walker can tell you what dynamic libraries are being used. I don't find it a necessity, but it can be helpful. (Tip: On Windows anyway, be sure to put "qwindows.dll" in a "platforms" directory with the exe. Tip #2: Make sure the Qt DLL's or static libraries are ones compiled for your compiler.)
I am searching for tool or software to build wizard installer to be easy to custom and have good UI view.
something like Microsoft Office / Microsoft VS or any good setup process?
Does Microsoft give tools like this?
I am not so familiar with software builds and installation.
Ideas from experts in installation field will be great
Thanks ALL.
Check out Caphyon's Advanced Installer.
There is NSIS and Inno Setup
They create Native Setup Applications, with very low overhead, and are very easy to learn with hundreds of examples
The latest versions of Visual Studio come with an installer, I'd also recommend the open-source NullSoft NSIS installer.
Visual Studio has it's own packaging tool, check it under the sub-menu of tools
I've had great success with the Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolkit.
There's a bit of a learning curve, but it's very flexible. The Wix Tutorial is a great resource to help you get started.