I'd like to create a script that will configure the Visual Studio IDE the way I like it. Nothing vastly complicated, just a few Tools/Options settings, adding some External Tools, that kind of thing.
I know that this can be done inside VS with Import/Export Settings, but I'd like to be able to automate it from outside of VS. Is this possible, and if so, how?
Edited to add: doing it from outside of VS is important to me -- I'm hoping to use this as part of a more general "configure this newly-Ghosted PC just the way I like it" script.
Edited again: the solution seems to be to hack CurrentSettings.vssettings, or use AutoIt. Details below.
Answering my own question, in two ways:
In VS2005/8, the things I mentioned (Tools/Options, External Tools) are all stored in the CurrentSettings.vssettings file, in the folder "Visual Studio 200{5|8}\Settings". This file is just XML, and it can be edited programmatically by anything that knows how to parse XML. You can also just paste a new vssettings file over the top of the default one (at least, this works for me).
The larger question of configuring a virgin PC. It turns out that not everything I want to change has an API, so I need some way of pretending to be a user who is actually sitting there clicking on things. The best approach to this seems to be AutoIt, whose scripting language I will now have to learn in my Copious Free Time.
An easy way is to use the macro recorder to do something simple, then look at the code it produces and edit it as you see fit.
On my machine Visual Studio stores it's local settings in a file called VCComponents.dat. Its a text file, so perhaps you could find a way of placing your settings directly in there.
The file is stored in my users local AppData\Local\Microsoft\VC folder
Related
I'm currently trying to make a download/install file for a CD, and I've never done this or written any type of coding before so I'm somewhat at a loss. When we last created an installer package (I wasn't employed yet) we used InstalShield, but that was decades ago, and we can't afford the 500$+ price to get it again.
Currently I'm trying to work off the old download package we have. There is the Windows Installer Package (made by InstalShield) called CD Cat v6.msi, and then another file called CDcatv6.exe (which launches a window for the customer to browse options) and then a file called Data.cab which has all the files for the entire catalog in it.
I was thinking perhaps I can just replace a lot of those files with the current information. Replace the CDcatv6.exe file with my v7.exe file (but change the name so its CDcatv6.exe) and then replace all the files in the Data.cab file with the current ones. But that's turning out to be a huge issue.
I did a bit of searching to learn what a .cab file was, and downloaded the Cab File Maker 2.0 (after quite a bit of searching!). I'm having a difficult time using it though, as it wants all the files that I put in it to make the .cab to be in .ddf format. I have no idea what that is, much less how to make it. I tried using 'save as' to do it, but since all the files I need are PDF's there's no option for it and I cant export the files to it either.
I tried looking at other ways that people made Cab files, but I don't know many of the file types or programs their talking about. I'm not a programmer by any means, but I have to learn quick I guess, so any information on how to do this will help greatly. Is it even possible to replace all the files seamlessly and have it work properly? Or is there an easier way to create a fill that the customer can click on and have it download to their desktop?
I don't think simple editing of Data.cab will work. There is installer logic stored in other InstallShield files. It could work if and only if the file set is the same, I mean no files changed its names, no new files added, no new registry entries required etc.
To create a CAB file, use cabarc.exe from Microsoft Windows SDK.
Creating a brand new installer may be a better option. Look at this tools for creating installers:
Advanced Installer
NSIS
WiX toolset (with tutorial)
You best solution is to use dark.exe (part of the WiX toolset).
This will enable to you decompile the MSI and CAB files, edit the installer source as XML and then recompile this into a new executable. Unfortunately this route is not for the faint of heart and what you save on price will cost you in time.
I'm curious how your company created an MSI decades ago, but Sasha is right about time and money trade-offs. However if you're working with Visual Studio, you might try the InstallShield Limited Edition for Visual Studio. It may have enough capabilities to suit your needs.
Thanks for pointing to CABARC, that looks exactly what i was looking for, due to information on:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/bb417343(v=msdn.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN#top
That make me look how to download it, but i found this post:
Where can I get the cabarc utility?
Where it explains CABARC may be obsolete and there is another utility called MAKECAB that cames with Windows 11, i had try it at command line and it is there.
Thanks a lot.
I would like to create an installer of my program.
However because the installation is quite complicated, I need something more advanced than installshield limited edition.
I have to run another installer from my current one. It doesn't matter if the user press "cancel" or installs the program, I just need to run it.
I have to install a directory structure on user computer which has a lot of files, that's why i'm going mad with wix: 100 files and I should write all of them with my hands in that xml file? Are we mad?
I have to install files from point 2 into a registry key. That's why I was using wix
I played with nsis long time ago and I liked it, but the language is not so nice.
Wix has "similar" problem. I would love using something like C# and things like that otherwise I'll stick with wix but I need a way to add files faster to xml file, can't add 100 files manually.
Any suggestion?
You can give Advanced Installer a try. It has folder synchronization, which means it can batch add contents of folders, with the possibility to filter out certain file name patterns, for example you'd want to filter *.pdb files and add all the rest to the project automatically.
I use it myself and never had a problem.
Wix Heat can generate the wxs source files for you.
You should look at InnoSetup. It has an IDE available that allows drag and drop of files (and multiple select in a file selection dialog), can launch other applications (including additional setup files), create and modify registry settings, and supports pretty complex scripting if needed. It's pretty easy to use, and the documentation is pretty good. It comes with pretty comprehensive sample installations, too.
The installation scripts are created by the IDE and then compiled into an installer, so the script source is editable by hand if needed. It's also not XML, but more like an INI file, so it's a little easier to work with manually as well.
Best of all it's free, and so is the IDE.
I would go back to using NSIS, if you use the HMNSIS editor http://hmne.sourceforge.net/ to write your scripts you can use the Wizard mode to make a list of the files and directory structure you will use in your installer.
Running other installers and registry settings are also easily done with NSIS.
autoexp.dat does not seem to take affect in Visual Studio C++ 2005 debugger.
I am not trying to add any custom rules. Just want commonly used stuff like stl::string, to display in a friendlier manner.
Does anyone know. how I can accomplish this? Is this just question of specifying a path to the autoexp.dat file somewhere. The file is available under the Visual Studio installation directory.
I had a similar problem in 2008, with the debugger showing only the e.g. std::vector _Myfirst,
_Mylast members rather than the vector size and children.
Open Tools/Options/Debugging/General and clear the flag "Show raw structure of objects in variable windows"
(Presumably the suggest
This got me the closest.
http://garrys-brain.blogspot.com/2007/12/stlport-visual-studio-2005-visualisers.html
It would appear you need to make adjustments for types while using ports.
Also you might have to make changes to the display to display exactly what you want.
I think this may have to do with the infamous VirtualStore in Windows Vista/7. I could change this in XP but when I try to update the autoexp.dat file in Win7 it creates a copy in AppData\Local\VirtualStore.... instead. I assume that the studio does read the original file when starting, so my changes are not seen. If anyone knows how to be able to edit the actual file please tell me how!
I would like to hand edit a Visual Studio team settings file to make a few changes. Is there a documented schema anywhere (either XSD or English prose) for .vssettings files?
Could you please elaborate on what you want to edit, and why? I'd be very surprised if you came across something that isn't settable from the GUI. If you need to automate some IDE setup across multiple machines, I'd suggest IDE macros.
Technically - the answer is no. vssettings files are not validated against any schema, documented or not.
In case it isn't obvious from the element names how to achieve what you want - you might, for example, set the desired option with the GUI and diff the resulting vssettings with the initial one.
But, again, why would you want to do that?
Are there any free tools available to view the contents of the solution user options file (the .suo file that accompanies solution files)?
I know it's basically formatted as a file system within the file, but I'd like to be able to view the contents so that I can figure out which aspects of my solution and customizations are causing it grow very large over time.
A bit late for the original poster, but maybe useful to others.
Two freeware viewers for structured storage files (including .suo-files):
https://github.com/ironfede/openmcdf (old URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/openmcdf/)
http://www.mitec.cz/ssv.html (free for non-commercial use)
When you open a .suo file in one of these viewers, you will see streams related to:
Bookmarks
Debugger watches
Unloaded projects
Outlining
Task-list user tasks
Debugger exceptions
Debugger Breakpoints
Debugger find source data
Open document windows
And much more...
The .SUO file is effectively disposable. If it's getting too large, just delete it. Visual Studio will create a fresh one.
If you do want to go poking around in it, it looks like an OLE Compound Document File. You should be able to use the StgOpenStorage function to get hold of an IStorage pointer.
I'm not aware of a tool, but you could write a Visual Studio extension to list the contents without too much work.
If you download the Visual Studio SDK, it has some straightforward examples that you can use. Find one that looks appropriate (like maybe the Toolwindow, if you want to give yourself a graphical display) and lift it (for your own personal use, of course).
What makes it easy is that the Package class which you implement in any VS extension, already implements the IVSPersistSolutionOpts, as aku mentioned. So you can just call the ReadUserOptions method on your package and inspect the contents.
I don't know any tool, but you can try to access user settings via IVsPersistSolutionOpts interface
You can use the built in tool that comes with OpenMCDF, which is called Structured Storage Explorer. It doesn't allow you to see all the details, but allows you to see all the individual settings and their sizes. In order to see the actual settings, you need to format the bytes as UTF-16.
Reference:
https://github.com/ParticularLabs/SetStartupProjects
I created an open source dotnet global tool for this:
dotnet install --global suo
suo view <path-to-suo-file>
More information at https://github.com/drewnoakes/suo