I have an update to third party .DLL that must be installed onto my clients' computers. We currently employ automated installs via MSI that are created in Visual Studio 2010
Unfortunately, the third party .DLL was versioned incorrectly and file version of it was not increased by the provider (they only increased assembly version). The third party provider is Microsoft, so waiting on them to fix the issue is not realistic. We need to get the new .DLL to people now and within one MSI update. Right now, MSI update is not overriding the .DLL
Is there a way within VS2010 Setup project to force override a .DLL even if the file versions match?
If you are willing to do msi postbuild tweaking you can hit the File table and do "version lying". Another thought is to not put that DLL in your install. Find an installer from Microsoft ( if it exists ) that you can put into a bootstrapper or create your own installer and use AMUS instead of OMUS for the version rules.
Can't you just add the file to your installer as a 'file' and install it with the other files? Don't set it as project output, or any of the canned install actions. Go to the file portion and right click the "Application Files" folder, and say > add file. Navigate to the file that you want and choose it.
Related
Is it possible to get pug in project for Outlook that is depend on NuGet packages to be installed with Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Installer Projects? I’m trying to create an installation file for a plug in for Outlook that have a drag and drop functionality dependent on the Easyhook Nuget package. That the plugin have a taskPane with a webbrowser there are drop Outlook e-mail messages as .msg files.
It works to install the plug in but the drag and drop functionality that is dependent on the NuGet package doesn’t work. That I can drop the message but the webpage doesn’t recognize the drop mails as .msg files or even as uploadable files. While if I try with the trial version of InstallShield 2018 Express Edition everything works including the drag and drop functionality.
I tried to do the same thing with Installer Project as with InstallShield. To output I added content files, debug symbols and primary output. Files I added was the manifest and vsto files for the Plugin and the .dll file for the NuGet Package, Easyhook32.dll. I got an error because the content file included the 64bit for the NuGet Package files, and I’m doing a 32bit installation, and also that the Easyhook32.dll file was duplicate, that it seems that the dll file also was added with the content files.
So, I excluded the 64bit files in the plug In project that should be installed and in the installation project I removed Easyhook32.dll files from the files that should be include in the installation. Also then it worked to install the plugin but the drag and drop functionality didn’t work. I also tried to for example not add the content files and just add the Easyhook32.dll and that also made the installation work except the drag and drop functionality.
I can of course also try other installation programs that is able to add NuGet but also are able to be installed from the Internet and also add registry keys and values. That I also have tried Microsoft Click Once installations program and it was easy to create an installation files but it seems like you need a valid certification if you want users to download the installation file from the Internet.
Also, this is the first time I working with type of installation like this ones and with Outlook Add In so I can have missed some obvious solutions. That at the same time english is not my first language so I can also have missed using the correct terminology.
NuGet is a build-time package manager. You'll need to redistribute any required binaries in your installer package by adding them manually. Typically, required binaries from NuGet packages will be copied to your output folder, so you could add them from those paths just like your project output.
How can I manually add the SQLite Entity Framework 4.0 provider without using the installer setup so that the Visual Studio New EDMX wizard will be able to use it to create a new data model?
I'm not sure which provider you are using, but I am asuming you are using the System.Data.SQLite provider available from http://system.data.sqlite.org/
In order to use the Design Time support in Visual Studio, you must download the installer and install everything. This will setup the Design Time support and also install the System.Data.SQLite and System.Data.SQLite.Linq assemblies into your development machine's Global Assembly Cache.
For your application to access the SQLite database, you will need to add a reference to those two assemblies to your project.
To do this, right click on the project and select "Add Reference". If you ran the installer, the two assemblies will be in the list. If you can't find them, download the assembly files from the website, put them anywhere on your drive and reference them by selecting the file.
To distribute your application, you simply need to send along the assembly files. The easiest way to do this is to put the two dll files in the installation folder.
You can do this by right clicking on the reference in the visual studio Solution Explorer, and selecting Properties. Here, set Copy Local to True. Now when your application compiles, a copy of the SQlite assemblies will be put in your target directory.
If you are deploying the files manually, simply copy along the assembly files and keep them in the same folder as your executable. If you are using One-Click Deployment or any other kind of Deployment, make sure the assemblies are deployed together with your application.
Note that, as far as I know, the assembly version used by the Design Time support must be the same version as the one deployed by your application. So if you update the one, make sure you update the other as well.
I have a fresh WIX UI Install project in VS which compiles down into an MSI. Everything is working great with it.
It installs/uninstalls the files I want successfully. For example, it drops 3 DLLs into a Program Files folder, installs a Windows Service, and GAC's a DLL.
Now let's say I install on this in a given environment. Then one of our DLLs change and we need to upgrade this install without affecting other files already installed (such as the service) So my thought would be I would need a patch/upgrade MSI that would target that one DLL and just overwrite that particular file.
What is the simplest way to accomplish this? Do I need VS projects essentially for each patch/update MSI? Below is my current 2 WIX related projects (installer + custom action)
For updating just the DLL a patch is recommended. Visual Studio doesn't support patches, but you can try using WiX: http://wix.sourceforge.net/manual-wix2/patch_building.htm
Please note that patches have some restrictions: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa367850(VS.85).aspx
A MSI which overwrites just one file is a bad mistake because you are not using the Windows Installer update mechanism.
If you want a MSI, it will have to be a major upgrade. A major upgrade will automatically uninstall the old version before installing the current one.
I am currently using Visual C++ to develop my DLL program. This DLL also uses outside executables inside my local hard drive.
When doing testing, I manually install the DLL using this command regsvr32 filename.dll at the Windows command prompt.
What I would like to do now is an installer, like the Installshield etc. So, after this I can easily install it on other Windows machines without the need to manually use the command prompt, copying those separates executables into the hard drive and so on.
Is there a way to do this the open source way? or Is it available inside Visual Studio? Need advice on best practice.
Another possibility since you're already using VS, you can create a "Setup and deployment project", found under "Other Project Types". This allows you amongst other things to select the output of another VS project (in the same solution), add registry entries, package files from the file system, and register (regsvr32) files. To register a DLL (once you have added it to the project), change the "Register" entry on the "Properties" Window to vsdrfCOMSelfReg. However if you're packaging other executables off the hard drive, I'm not sure how you would make sure that they run. You prob have to make sure that you package all their run-times and dependencies.
AFAIR this functionality is not available in the express editions of VS.
WiX is open source, and there's a free (no cost) version of InstallShield available for Visual Studio 2010, so both.
when I build solutions in Visual Studio, that generates installer files as .exe and .msi, .exe files are useful for what?
The .EXE file that is created by the installer project is a bootstrapper for the .MSI setup file. It is used to launch the .MSI setup file.
Generally, both will launch the setup program and allow the user to install the application. However, sometimes the setup.exe file will run a custom validation routine to determine if the user's computer meets the minimum requirements for installing the software.
For example, if the user does not have Windows Installer, they will not be able to launch the .MSI file, but the .EXE application will still run and inform them that they need to install Windows Installer first. For .NET applications specifically, the .EXE file verifies the presence of the appropriate version of the .NET Framework, and if it is not present, it prompts the user to download and install it.
You can customize the prerequisites that are required for your application in your installer project using Visual Studio. See these MSDN articles for details on how to do that:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165429(v=VS.100).aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7eh4aaa5(v=VS.100).aspx
Others have commented on the how (.exe bootstraps the .msi) but part of the reason why is that users know that .exe files are the things you run. I don't think your average user knows that .msi files are something that you can click on to install an application.
The .exe file is made for installing the prerequisites of your application.
Let's say your application uses the .Net 3.5 framework, you can tell the installer project to include the installation of the needed libraries if they're not already installed.
You may also deactivate it, so only the .msi is being created.
This page shows how to activate and configure the prerequisites setup, just uncheck the checkbox in order to deactivate it.
You also find more details on the process of Bootstrapping on MSDN:
the capability to automatically detect
the existence of components during
installation and install a
predetermined set of prerequisites
.exe files are useful for executing your programs that you've just built in Visual Studio, assuming you're not doing web applications.
Pretty much every Windows program out there is executed using files with an .exe suffix.
Installer exe files are normally just the msi wrapped in a bootstrapper. The bootstrapper can do anything, but normally its purpose is to ensure the user is running a sufficient version of Windows Installer, then extract the msi and invoke msiexec.exe to start installing the msi. Generating installers as exe's is deprecated these days, but some still do it.