I've only started to play around with Visual Studio Express C++ 2010 (more comfortable with Autotools on *nix platforms) and am still exploring the menu items, but I'd like to just get the answer from someone who knows whether or not with the free version one can make .msi installers for their programs.
Sorry, you are out of luck :
The Express Editions do not include Windows Installer technology
However, you should be able to get this capability for free via the Platform SDK.
Related
I have Visual Studio 2010 Professional installed. But for a client I do need Visual Studio 2008 (to avoid some upgrades that are note compatible with vs2010)
It is my job's notebook, so everything must be original and legal. And both, the client and my boss want to avoid licences costs. ANYWAY... it seems that my notebook already has some version of vs2008, I need to know if it is too muche reduced or if it will work to develop.
I can open a vs2008 that seems pretty much the same, also the about screen. But at "Add or Remove Programs" I just only have "Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2.0"
Finnaly when I run the app, it works, but the code is not recognize, it is shown as it is notepad.
Here are some screenshots that may help... THANKS ALL!!
VSTA is sort of a replacement for VBA, i.e. you can use VS to write .NET code to extend and automate thrid-party applications that are designed to support it. It appears that that is the only VS 2008 component that you have installed so you cannot open VB or C# projects or any of that stuff. If you want a legal copy of VS 2008 that you don't have to pay for then you'll need to look at an Express edition, although that may lack some features that you need. 2008 Express editions are hard to come by now too, as they are not offered for download any more by Microsoft.
What are these non-upgradeable parts of your project?
I'm trying to set up some new developers to make apps for the Okuma control using the Okuma API and SDK. What environment should they use? I tried installing Visual Studio Express 2012 but it keeps giving an error looking for files during install. Also, what language should they use so they can work with the Okuma API?
The Okuma API is written using .NET 4.0 so you really have several options.
Normally I'd say Visual Studio express 2012 for desktop is best but I've seen problems putting it on Windows XP.
If you're using windows XP and aren't ready to invest in a full version of Visual Studio yet, I'd recommend Visual C# Express 2010. If you're more familiar with VB and don't want to switch, do the VB express verison.
All these (and the professional version) are available from
www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng#downloads
VS 2019 community edition is currently working fine for me doing this. I just have to choose which .net framework in the project settings. That was not listed in the prior answer in case anyone comes across this in the future.
I have Visual Studio 2010 Professional however it seems as though I cannot open/create Office Projects.
I assumed there must have been something wrong with my install and a feature wasn't added. However whenever I go into my Maintenance Mode for my VS2010 nothing about Office appears. And it does say Professional, which I believe comes with office tools.
I do have Office 2010 also installed.
I've looked around and everywhere says that I can just add that feature, but I only get a number of features in my install; VB, C++. C# (plus X64 Compilers and Tools), Visual Web Developer and Graphics Library, all of which are tickets.
Any tips?
p.s. I do also have SP1
For anyone else that may encounter this problem, you may need to reinstall SP1 as well as Visual Studio. This is what did it for me.
VSTO is what you're looking for.
Try one of the walkthrough articles to get started.
I create a small application and I would like to create one MSI file.
In Visual Studio 2010 you have this project type under:
Other Project Types -> Setup and Deployment -> Visual studio Installer -> Setup Project
But the only thing you got in Visual Studio 2012 is "Enable InstallShield Limited Edition".
You can change the .NET Framework, but nothing changes.
Why is it not there any more? And how can I get it back? Is there a new way to do this?
Please see:
Visual Studio setup projects (vdproj) will not ship with future versions of VS
Windows Installer Deployment
It was announced 1 1/2 years ago that the project types were being killed. Alternatives are:
Use A VS2008/2010 Solution to build your installer
Switch to another tool such as InstallShield or Windows Installer XML
To create setup projects in Visual Studio 2012 with InstallShield Limited Edition, watch this video.
The InstallShield limited edition that cannot install services.
"ISLE is by far the worst installer option and the upgraded, read -
paid for, version is cumbersome to use at best and impossible in most
situations. InnoSetup, Nullsoft, Advanced, WiX, or just about any
other installer is better. If you did a survey you would see that
nobody is using ISLE. I don't know why you guys continue to associate
with InstallShield. It damages your credibility. Any developer worth
half his weight in salt knows ISLE is worthless and when you stand
behind it we have to question Microsoft's judgment."
By Edward Miller (comments in Visual Studio Installer Projects Extension).
The WiX Toolset, which, while powerful is exceeding user-unfriendly and has a steep learning curve. There is even a downloadable template for installing Windows services (ref. VS2012: Installer for Windows services?).
For Visual Studio 2013, see blog post Creating installers with Visual Studio.
Have you tried the "Publish" method? You just right click on the project file in the solution explorer and select "Publish" from the pop-up menu. This creates an installer in a few very simple steps.
You can do more configuration of the installer from the Publish tab in the project properties window.
NB: This method only works for WPF & Windows Forms apps.
Microsoft has listened to the cry for supporting installers (MSI) in Visual Studio and released the Visual Studio Installer Projects Extension. You can now create installers in Visual Studio 2013; download the extension here from the visualstudiogallery.
ISLE (InstallShield Limited Edition) is the "replacement" of the Visual Studio Setup and Deploy project, but many users think Microsoft took wrong step with removing .vdproj support from Visual Studio 2012 (and later ones) and supporting third-party company software.
Many people asked for returning it back (Bring back the basic setup and deployment project type Visual Studio Installer), but Microsoft is deaf to our voices... really sad.
As WiX is really complicated, I think it is worth to try some free installation systems - NSIS or Inno Setup. Both are scriptable and easy to learn - but powerful as original SADP.
I have created a really nice Visual Studio extension for NSIS and Inno Setup with many features (intellisense, syntax highlighting, navigation bars, compilation directly from Visual Studio, etc.). You can try it at www.visual-installer.com (sorry for self promo :)
Download Inno Setup (jrsoftware.org/isdl.php) or NSIS (nsis.sourceforge.net/Download) and install V&I (unsigned-softworks.sk/visual-installer/downloads.html).
All installers are simple Next/Next/Next...
In Visual Studio, select menu File -> New -> Project, choose NSISProject or Inno Setup, and a new project will be created (with full sources).
There is some progress for Visual studio 2013 developers :-D woot woot! See blog post Visual Studio Installer Projects Extension.
Link and information were retrieved from Brian Harry's blog post Creating installers with Visual Studio.
Have a look at the article Visual Studio Installer Deployment. It will surely help you.
You can choose the correct version of .NET framework on the page.
So for you, make it .NET 4.5. I guess that would be there for Visual Studio 2012.
I think that Deploying an Office Solution by Using ClickOnce (MSDN) can be useful.
After creating an Outlook plugin for Office 2010 the problem was to install it on the customer's computer, without using ISLE or other complex tools (or expensive).
The solution was to use the publish instrument of the Visual Studio project, as described in the link. Just two things to be done before the setup will work:
Install the PIA (Primary Interop Assembly) of Office 2010
Install the VSTO 2010 runtime
I've a couple of Makefile projects on my visual studio (express) 2005/2008 (doesn't matter for now) to compile some application using the MinGW GCC compiler. I don't want to use the MS compiler because there are features that only are available on GCC.
Now I'd like to debug from inside VS since I'm coding from it but this requires me to use GDB (it works from the command line) but i prefer to use the IDE tools.
Is there a way to do this? Even if the Express version is limited and doesn't support it can it be done using the full version?
If you prefer IDE working under Windows you may be interested in Code Blocks or Qt Creator. They are free.
There are commercial dev-tools for Unixes too: MagicC++ (IDE), debuggers like TotalView, Allinea, Zero-bugs, UndoDB ...
If you want to stay with Visual Studio check this WinGDB. It is not supported by Express edition (extensions are not supported at all). But Microsoft have recently released free Visual Studio Community (has almost all features of Professional Edition), which is free and can be legally used by students/hobbyists/startups - free for individuals for developing commercial applications, free for organizations for developing open source applications, free for organizations (for up to 5 individual users) for developing commercial applications only if the organization has less than 250 computers and has less than $10M annual revenue. Refer VS 2013 Community License for more information.
By the way VirtualBox may be very helpful (I debug (Open)Solaris or Linux as VBox machines very frequently) ;-).
Normally you cannot use it with Visual Studio Express, as VS Express does not support third-party add-ins and will only work with Microsoft debugger (requiring symbol information from Microsoft compiler).
However, you can make Visual Studio Professional (or higher) work with GDB by installing a third-party plugin such as VisualGDB.
Note that there are several ways to get Visual Studio Professional for free:
If your software company is a product-oriented startup, you can get free Visual Studio via BizSpark
If you are a student, you can also get a free Visual Studio license via DreamSpark
As far as I know, you can only debug from within the IDE if you have compiled your code with the Microsoft compiler. Otherwise, the Visual Studio debugger doesn't have a clue what to do with the GDB debug information.