I'm creating my first install using the Install Shield version that ships with VS 2010.
On vista and 7 only the .NET 4.0 client is required, but on XP my application reqires:
.NET 2.0 (I think this is required
for the following prereqs)
XP Update KB968930 (Windows
Management Framework Core)
XP Update KB971513 (Microsoft Active
Accessibility Package)
SAPI 5.1 (Text to Speech and Speech
Recognition)
When testing the application I've just manually run the exe for each of those (for SAPI I used the old SAPI 5.1 sdk to make sure it's installed which seems overkill). I was thinking of just creating an exe file which would run all four executables and then run the installer (or I think I could via a VB Script inside Install Shield?)
I'm wondering if there is a cleaner way to check for these, prompt the user for each one, and then quietly install as part of the install using Install Shield? Or just a simple way to package them into an install.
Thanks for your help!!
InstallShield 2010 Limited Edition uses .PRQ files but doesn't come with a PRQ editor. You have a few options:
1) Work out the XML schema ( there's no XSD provided ) for the .PRQ files and edit it by hand and update the ISM XML by hand to reference the newly added PRQ files.
2) Spend about $1500 to upgrade to InstallShield 2010 Professional Edition.
3) Evaluate InstallShield 2010 Pro to generate the PRQ files and update the ISM by hand to reference the PRQ files ( way easier then #1 but still not for the faint of heart )
4) Engage a consultant to help you get this done. :-)
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 have Install Shield 2008 Express Edition and a Setup project which create's a exe and and msi installer. Now as our application uses HLP files as a help system and HLP files are not supported natively on Windows Vista and newer i need to add to the setup an prerequsite installation of the Help Viewer for Windows Vista, 7, 2008 which can be downloaded from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=258aa5ec-e3d9-4228-8844-008e02b32a2c### and is in MSU (Microsoft Update format)
Also i need to make a conditionall install which means that i need to detect if the setup is running on Vista, 7 2008 and then detect if 32-bit or 64-bit and the install the correct MSU. Is this possible and if yes how to do it in installshield 2008 express?
I see in the Redistributables section only predefined prerequisites. How can i add own, custom?
The Express SKU of InstallShield doesn't provide a means for creating custom prereq (.PRQ ) files. The files are simple XML documents though and with a trial version of InstallShield Pro/Prem. you could author one and then drop it in the directory for Express to consume.
Checkout my blog article describing how to author a prereq. The details would depend on the specific MSU you are authoring.
Using InstallShield 12 to Install .NET Framework 3.0
I am using the Windows installer that comes with VS2010. This app uses .Net4 and will mainly run on xp machines. It also uses some third party assemblies that require .Net2.
If the pc is using XP SP2 I also need to install Windows Imagining Components.
Selecting .Net2 in the prerequsites will not install WIC and will try to install .Net2 on Windows 7 which casues an error.
If I check the .Net3 SP1 prerequisite this will include .Net2 and WIC. Unfortunately when the installer runs it first tries to install framework 4 before framework 3.5.
Is there a way of changing the order of the prerequisites so that 3.5 is installed before 4?
Here is the method to add WIC to your prerequisites list.
Quoted from above link:
"create a custom MSI Bootstrapper Package for WIC -and- add it as a dependency for the standard .NET bootstrapper package
I've created the bootstrapper and patch for the standard .NET bootstrapper which comes with VS.
Download this self-extracting archive , unpack to %PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bootstrapper\Packages, and you're ready to go.
If everything is OK, you should see "Windows Imaging Component" in ClickOnce Prerequisites window. Add it to your project, and it should install fine from now on"
This may solve your problem, because if you select it in the list it will be installed before .Net 4 and there is no need to install .Net 2 beforehand.
I have a windows installer (MSI) project. I want to ensure that when i build it , it will be compatible with msiexec version 4.5.
Normally, compatibility is a problem with a lower verions. Windows Installer 4.5 is the latest version of windows installer and I would expect it to be backward compatible. So, most likely things that you are using will be supported.
What you should worry about is compatibility with older versions of Windows Installer. Most IDEs for creating installers would let you know if you are using something that is available only after some version of Windows Installer onwards.
If your IDE does not provide this feature then you should be aware of what all you are using in your MSI and make sure thats its available in the Windows Installer version you intend to you target with your installer.
That depends on the tool you use to build the MSI, you should be able to specify the required installer version there.
For example, WIX, which I frequently use has a "InstallerVersion" attribute at its "Package" XML Element. There I can specify which Windows Installer Version is required.
(Currently I do not require Installer 4.5 as it isn't deployed everywhere yet and I don't want to require customers to install the new installer on XP.)
Update:
Re-reading your question I get the impression that you use a Visual Studio Installer project. I believe you can't configure the Windows Installer Version there, but it defaults to Windows Installer 3.whatever (I'm not sure about the specific minor version). Setups created with that are compatible with Windows XP in any way.
I don't believe you WANT to require a newer version of Windows Installer when you use a Visual Studio setup project, as the setup project is very limited in what it can do. So to require a newer version of the installer you probably have a specific feature in mind (for example elevation on Vista). To use that feature you'd need a better tool to build installers anyways (like WIX, or Installshield or Wise or ...)
We are working on a winforms app in Visual Studio 2005 and the setup project we created output both an MSI and an EXE. We aren't sure what the EXE file is used for because we are able to install without the EXE.
It's a bootstrapper that checks to make sure that the .NET Framework is installed, before launching the MSI. It's pretty handy.
I suggest using something like SFX Compiler to package the two together into one self-extracting .exe and then launch the extracted setup.exe. This way you retain the benefits of the bootstrapper, but your users only download a single thing.
Edit: also see
The official line: MSDN documentation
Some bootstrapper customization: some guy's blog post about what he did
The EXE checks if Windows Installer 3.0 is present and downloads and installs it if it's not. It's needed only for Windows 2000 or older. Windows XP and newer all have Windows Installer 3.0 out of the box.
Other prerequisites, like .NET, are checked for by the MSI itself.
I think the EXE is just a wrapper/bootstrapper for the MSI in case you don't have Window Installer. If you have the requisite Windows Installer version installed then the MSI should work fine on its own.