How to install powershell as a prerequisite? - visual-studio-2010

I am using Visual Studio 2010 setup project

I don't think you are allowed to redistribute PowerShell. And at any rate, it is built in to Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2. All the other platforms have separate installers as well. I think it would be best to just notify your customers that they need PowerShell 2.0.

I had a similar problem in the StudioShell installer - wanted to make sure PoSh 2.0 is installed. I did a cursory check for the executable with a minimum version number, and added a launch condition that notified the user of the missing prerequisite and offered to open a web page to the PowerShell download. Seemed like the most legally helpful approach.

There is a way, albiet requiring you to build some MSI thing manually that will get it from MS and install it for you. I know the exchange install used that technique. You can also get a license/permission from MS to redistribute the official installers.

Related

SQL Server 2017 Express silent installation

With our Installer, Customer wants us to check if the SQL server is installed or not and it is not installed, the installer should install it. Also, the installation should be silent and not ask anything to the user as they are not techies. Now by sending the full SQL server 2017 express installer along our application could be one option but that will make the installer size very big. To avoid that, I thought of the online installer. But the online installer seems not to be taking arguments and throwing exception. Customer and Project team don't want user's involvement. Could any of you guys suggest any other option where I can sent the small Online installer and launch it with some command line options / configuration to achieve this?
Not sure what tool do you use to create your setup packages, but the Advanced Installer packaging tool addresses your requirement. You can have a look on Install SQL Server 2017 Silently/with BasicUI tutorial on their online docs. Hope this helps somehow.
Disclaimer: I use Advanced Installer tool to package my .Net application.

Custom installer for application in Visual Studio 2017

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

Installing VS2005 on Windows 7

I'm trying to install Visual Studio 2005 on a Windows 7 box but am repeatedly getting the same error. When I run the installer it starts to run then pops up with a message saying:
"A problem has been encountered while loading the setup components. Canceling setup."
Various suggestions has said that maybe the install is corrupted so I downloaded a fresh copy of the ISO from MSDN today, same issue. Another suggestion is that installing from the ISO may be the issue so I extracted the contents of the ISO to a folder on my HDD, same issue. I have also tried running the files as administrator and in XP compatability mode, same issue.
Searching for this issue the most common responses I've found have been about installing SP1, however I cannot get the base product to install and therefore cannot apply SP1.
Does anyone have any further suggestions as to what I can do to fix this issue and get VS2005 installed? If anyone wants any log files of any variety I am happy to supply so long as you tell me where to look as I'm not sure.
As for why I am using VS2005 and not a newer product, it is required for the ongoing support and maintenance of some older applications we manage. These cannot be easily migrated to a newer version of Visual Studio without some considerable investment of time and that would probably be longer than the time it will take to develop newer, replacement applications (which is currently in progress). Until the new applications are available though we need to maintain an environment to use.
Did you try running setup.exe in compatibility mode with Windows XP? Some discussion here on how to do this.
Another alternative since you alluded to having an MSDN subscription. Download Windows XP and install it into a VM. (If HyperV isn't already in installed with your Win7, you can add it from Control Panel->Programs&Features->Turn Windows Features on/off). Then install VS2005 from there.

How can I upgrade Windows Installer from inside an MSI (using WiX)? Is it possible?

I've currently got an .exe that bootstraps a bunch of prerequisites (NET3.5, hotfixes, ...), including upgrades to Windows Installer (I need 3.1), and then finally runs my msi.
I'd like switch this to have an .msi that does everything, and calls an embedded binary for each prereq. Hopefully this'll be less error-prone plus I can integrate the UI better.
Before I go sinking time into this, does anyone know if it's possible and/or a good idea? I'm thinking start the msi, and if the installer version is too low then upgrade it and use a customaction return="asyncNoWait" to run the newly installed version on the same msi.
I'm new to installers, so any advice is appreciated.
Found a few other depressing SO questions.
Can't be done. So sad.
UPDATE: WIX 3.6 (currently beta) has Burn! WIN! http://wix.sourceforge.net/downloadv36.html
Try dotNetInstaller to do the dependency checking and install the Windows Installer update before launching your MSI.

VB6 Program not working in Windows Me

I have written a program in VB6. When I compile it and send it to my friend, he says it is not working. He (like me) has Windows Me.
Why my programs are not working there? Should he install something or what?
Your friend will need the VB6 runtime files to run any VB6 programs. You can find them on Microsoft's site.
You should be able to generate an installer project. There are a number of dependencies for the VB6 runtime (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bf9a24f9-b5c5-48f4-8edd-cdf2d29a79d5)
He should install Microsoft Visual Basic run-time files that all applications created with Visual Basic 6.0 need in order to run.
You can get it from Microsoft's Download Center.
He probably needs the VB runtimes.
But you should look into creating a proper msi installer package for you project.
There is a free one from MS to use with VB6 called the Visual Studio Installer 1.1.
Not much information to go on, if you have more, that would be helpful. I'm just guessing, but, your friend's computer may not have the VB6 runtime installed. If he's willing, he should try installing it and see if that fixes the problem.

Resources