There are many articles and posts about how to include VC runtimes in an MSI file.
I am using Advanced Installer and VS2008
Some say use Merge Modules; I am not sure they will work correctly ie. if they go in before my services (which depend on them) start up during the install, and also merge modules seme to have have an annoying habit of demanding a reboot on uninstall;
I have tried simply copying the .exe redistrutable packages from MS and using a custom-action under Install to execute them with the /q switch. I can run other installers like this (eg. SQLITE) and it works. But the MS files don't seem to become installed. They certainly don't show up in the Programs or Updates list.
Does anybody know a simple, effective way to incorporate the VC2008 runtimes into an MSI installation?
This is usually done through prerequisites. Currently Advanced Installer has predefined prerequisites for most Visual C++ redistributables. So all you need to do is add them to your project.
If you run the Visual C++ Redistributable as part of Advanced Installer Custom Action without the /q switch you will see it fails with error 'Another installation is currently in progress'.
I am experimenting with installing the pre-requisite first (before install phase of installer) or if that fails, I will use the Predefined Prerequisites (above). However, to have /q on the VCRedist when a Predefined Prerequisite requires an enterprise license, which I don't have ..
Update
Resolved as follows:
Include the VCRedist in your installer
Have a new Custom Action to 'Launch Installed File', choose the VCRedist from your installed files
Use command line /install /q /norestart
Drag the custom action last in the list after 'Finish Execution'
Your Custom Action dialog should look something like this
Related
I have a folder with a 3rd party installer, the folder contains a setup.exe and all its CAB files next to it (and many related folders).
I want to be able to re-package this 3rd party installer into something that I can use in my main application installer as a prerequisite (or as a chained msi package).
I want to not just extract/copy those files on the client machine, but run the installer.
Is it possible to create a MSI from all those files using Installshield? I can't seem to find a project type that would do it.
I'm an InstallShield noob looking for help with a similar problem, but for your needs a Basic MSI Project should be sufficient.
If you are using the Project Assistant wizard, when you the get to the Application Files section you drag-and-drop your various folders and the setup.exe into the INSTALLDIR folder in the wizard and that's pretty much it, I think.
As I recall from other issues I had creating a non-installing MSI of SQL Server, Install Shield will automatically recognize your setup.exe and run that when the .MSI is run.
Problem Scenario: What is your scenario?
Are you taking over the handling and update of an old setup and need to convert it to a proper format?
Are you trying to re-package a third party vendor setup.exe?
Are you trying to get hold of the files inside the CABs? Or just to extract the files so they can be re-packaged some other way. For some reason?
Are you trying to install the whole shebang as easily and reliably as possibly in silent mode?
Some other problem scenario?
Silent Running?: If what you need is to just install silently, then there are command line switches for most setup.exe wrappers that will let you do this, but it is different for every tool used to create the setup.exe file. Installshield's setup.exe files require a silent response file, other tools do it differently. I wrote about Installshield silent uninstall a couple of days ago. And here is a piece on regular silent install and various types of Installshield setup.exe files.
Record response file:
Setup.exe /r /f1”c:\temp\my-answer-file.iss”
Basic silent install:
Setup.exe /s /f1”c:\temp\my-answer-file.iss”
If the setup.exe is a wrapper for an MSI and you have a distribution system to rely on to distribute the pre-requisite components, then it is generally better to extract the MSI if you are in a corporate environment and use the standard features in MSI to run silently (the /QN switch for msiexec.exe):
msiexec.exe /I "C:\Your.msi" /QN /L*V "C:\msilog.log" TRANSFORMS="C:\1031.mst;C:\My.mst"
Quick Parameter Explanation:
/I = run install sequence
/QN = run completely silently
/L*V "C:\msilog.log" = verbose logging
TRANSFORMS="C:\1031.mst;C:\My.mst" = Apply transforms 1031.mst and My.mst (see below).
File Extraction?: Getting the files out of a setup.exe can be challenging, or very easy. It depends what it was built with, and that can be pretty much "anything" - from established deployment tools to proprietary software made by "anyone". To extract files from various types of setup.exe you can find extensive information in this answer:
Extract MSI from EXE (a plethora of links on the subject)
There is also Michael Urman's "hand's-on": Programmatically extract contents of InstallShield setup.exe
Essentially you use setup.exe /stage_only for Installshield Suite executables. And setup.exe /a for Basic MSI and Installscript MSI executables. And setup.exe /s /extract_all for legacy Installscript executables. Clarifications below.
MSI Import: If you manage to extract the files and you see an MSI file there,
then you should be able to import or open that MSI file in
Installshield (or other deployment tools as well).
I'll try a quick "short-list" of extraction options (not sure if that is what you really need):
Already an MSI?: Do you know what that setup.exe contains? Technically it could already be a wrapper containing an MSI file, or it could be the output of some legacy deployment tool and not be a Windows Installer at all. Let's just list a few options:
Administrative Installation: Try to do a setup.exe /a from a command prompt to see if you get an "extract files" dialog. If so, specify an output location and extract all files. This indicates an MSI setup wrapped in a setup.exe
Installscript setup: Try to do a setup.exe /s /extract_all from a command prompt to see if you can extract files from the CABs. This is for Installscript setups. Or try /extract_all:[path] as well.
Installshield Suite Setups: Try to do a setup.exe /stage_only from a command prompt. Lots of elaborate details here.
Advanced Installer: Try to do setup.exe /extract "C:\My work" or setup.exe /x
WiX: Try the following from a command prompt: dark.exe -x outputfolder setup.exe. A WiX setup.exe file can only be extracted using the dark.exe tool from the framework itself. In other words you need to install WiX to extract a WiX setup.exe (as of now).
Wise: Wise is no longer marketed, but many older setups remain. You can try to extract files with setup.exe /X [path].
Repackaging: One way to create an MSI package from older-style, legacy setup.exe installers, is to "capture" the changes done to the system by using an Application Repackaging Tool which monitors changes made to the system whilst a setup.exe is being run.
It is impossible to cover all the different kinds of possible setup.exe files. They might feature all kinds of different command line switches. There are so many possible tools that can be used. (non-MSI,MSI, admin-tools, multi-platform, etc...).
Commmon tools such as Inno Setup seems to make extraction hard (unofficial unpacker, not tried by me, run by virustotal). Whereas NSIS seems to use regular archives that standard archive software can open.
General Tricks: One trick is to launch the setup.exe and look in the 1) system's temp folder for extracted files. Another trick is to use 2) 7-Zip, WinRAR, WinZip or similar archive tools to see if they can read the format. Some claim success by 3) opening the setup.exe in Visual Studio. Not a technique I use.
Some Links:
How do I extract an InstallShield Cabinet file? (this I have never tried)
Uninstall and Install App on my Computer silently
How to make better use of MSI files
That sort of looks like a legacy Installshield setup.exe OR an
Installscript MSI setup.exe. Despite similar appearances these are very different beasts.
I would try the following to determine what you are dealing with:
setup.exe /a
If you get a dialog asking you for an output folder you probably have
an Installscript MSI. Extract the files and then look for an MSI in
the output folder.
If that does not work try setup.exe /s /extract_all or setup.exe /extract_all:[path]. Or try this answer.
Installshield Suite Project: Seeing as you want to distribute this setup as part of your own application deployment I would probably use an Installshield Suite Project - if you have a license for an Installshield version that supports this project type. See screen shot here.
The Silent_Install.bat file (and the associated Silent_Uninstall.bat for uninstall) should contain the command lines you need to use when inserting the package into the suite project. Then you also include your own application as part of the suite installation. Makes sure to test well in all deployment scenarios: install, upgrade, modify, uninstall, patch, etc... There are always surprises.
Repackaging: Alternatively you could re-package the setup with a capture tool instead of running it "as is" - in the existing format. Then you essentially "record" changes made by the setup by monitoring its installation. This works in most cases, but requires significant knowledge to clean up properly. There are also challenges for multi-lingual setups - which this appears to be. This approach has been extensively used in corporations to convert legacy installers to MSI format - and it is still in use. The end result is an MSI that can be installed in silent mode in the standard Windows Installer fashion (which is reliable - much more so than a legacy setup.exe run in silent mode). I would still wrap the captured MSI in a suite project, although you in principle could add it to your own product's MSI. I would not recommend this - for several reasons. Most significantly that you could need to update the runtime setup on its own - without rebuilding your own MSI.
My application is Install Shield based installer. My requirement is to silently install this installer in the build machine sliently by using /s command line argument.
To get this done we have to generate setup.iss file which will be used to install silently the installer. To automate the process of generating .iss file we need to populate the product code of the installer in the file.
Is there anyway to get the product code of an Install Shiled installer.exe without installing it just by querying it?
You're problem is over complicated by the fact that you are using an InstallScript MSI project. The main 'feature' of this project type is a rich UI. But if your application is meant to be installed silently on a build server, who cares what the UI looks like?
Rewrite your installer as a Basic MSI and use the standard command msiexec /i foo.msi /qn REBOOT=R and you won't need to do all this messing around with creating response files for install and uninstall.
I work for a company that uses SCCM to deploy installers to 300,000 machines and these response file driven installers always have a much higher failure rate.
If you perform an administrative install (setup.exe /a ...), the .msi file will be extracted. From there you can query the .msi file for its product code using Windows Installer APIs (see the Installer Database section).
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 need to include a runtime as part of a project installer.
I was having trouble including it, as an error saying "an installation is already in progress" was appearing, due to the fact that I was essentially trying run an msi from within an msi.
I managed to get over this by including it in the "OnAfterInstall" event, however it appears now that it is not being installed on upgrades, only on fresh installs.
Can anyone offer any advice?
Thanks
You don't specify what version of the Visual C++ Runtime, but this may work:
Visual Studio Installer Projects provide a prerequisites setting which is pre-populated with a list of common components. These are .mst files, so they can be merged into your installer. To reach the prerequisites screen, right-click your installer project -> Properties -> Prerequisites. Check the appropriate box in the list and change the option at the bottom to include the prerequisite in the setup program.
apparently you should add it as a "merge module" in your MSI http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2007/10/12/how-to-redistribute-the-visual-c-libraries-with-your-application.aspx
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.