I have been evaluating the wide range of installation and web deployment solutions available for Windows applications. I will just clarify here (without too much detail, these tools have been covered in other questions) my understanding of the options: NSIS - Free tool that generates setup executables. Small binary. Specialized, som...
I have developed a WMI provider in C# using the System.Management.Instrumentation namespace. I need to install the provider into the GAC and register it with the WMI repository using MSI. How might I accomplish this with WIX? ...
We use wix to create setups for our application. For the case where the user has already installed an older version of our application, we do a major upgrade by making use of Upgrade elements and RemoveExistingProducts as described here. This is all working as desired: if an older version is installed, it is upgraded transparently. If a ...
I'm using a Setup project in VS 2005, and I've learned all about the "joys" of advertised shortcuts. My project creates shortcuts to the program on the Desktop and Start Menu, and whenever those are run, the MSI re-installs the application (because installed files have changed). I've also created a file association for my application,...
I'm working on an installer project that consists of an MSI file and a bootstrap application that manages the prerequisites; and since the need for some of the prerequisites depends on what features the user chooses to install, the bootstrap app also provides the UI. I want to be able to force the Add/Remove Programs (or Programs and Fea...
Folks, we're running into some sequencing troubles with our MSI install. As part of our app, we install a bunch of services and allow the user to pick whether to start them right away or later. When they start right away, they seem to start too early in the install sequence - before our database manager had a chance to update the datab...
The problem is that when projects are been built and produced normally without any errors the final packaged msi is missing dependency assemblies that are normally packaged if someone builds the project through visual studio for example. So what happens is that the application is getting installed normally and then crashes on run time by...
Are there any limitations that I might face when using VS Setup Projects? I plan to use them, but am not sure if this would be a good idea. ...
I am finalizing an application that will soon be submitted for Windows Logo Program validation. One of the requirements is x64 compatibility. Specifically, Crystal Reports 2008 must work under x64. My problem is that Crystal Reports basic 2008 (the one packaged with Visual Studio 2008) has no merge modules and must be installed using ...
I've configured an InstallShield setup to delete certain VDs from IIS right before the InstallFiles action. The code is being called within the "OnInstallFilesActionBefore" event. This works fine, except that I don't want the VDs to be removed if the setup is repairing. I've found this page which lists the possible events; however, it s...
I have a web setup project, and a web service project in visual studio 08 In my web setup project i allow the user to choose his virtual directory name and by the end of the installation i have an installer class in my web service project that "wants" to do some stuff such as opening a web page with the web service home page installed. ...
I added a condition to the OnInstallFilesActionBefore Custom Action via the Sequences editor. I made it so it only executes the first time you install the setup, which means my condition is: Not Installed I'm now seeing this warning logged when compiling: ISDEV : warning The condition for Custom Action OnInstallFilesActionBef...
I have a shared dll, we’ll call it Utility.dll that is installed by multiple products. In my WIX file I install Utility.dll as a separate component. Now version 2.0 of the Utility.dll references an additional dll, UtilityUtility.dll which will need to be installed alongside. For my first attempt integrating UtilityUtility.dll I created ...
Hi all, I've got a legacy application that's installed directly to the user's c: drive, in a directory (like c:\MyApp). Nasty stuff. Problem is, the user can specify to have a second installation on a second drive (like e:\MyApp), and they can have two different versions of the application installed at once in either directory. They ...
I am writing a VSPackage for Visual Studio 2008, and am deploying it with a WiX generated Msi. As the end of the install, I am running "devenv.exe /setup" as required to get VS to notice my package. However, this command will not succeed if there are any copies of Visual Studio running. Currently, I tell people they have to close all ...
I'm considering deploying websites to an Win2k3/IIS6 machine using a MSI built with WiX. The website in question has a collection of .html, .jpg, .js, .swf & .asp files (no ASP.NET) I'm doing a "Major Upgrade" when installing the MSI (i.e, it first uninstalls the old MSI, then installs the new MSI). This is the only way I can figure t...
My problem is this: I am getting a TFS build failure that I have tracked back to what appears to be a missing Registry key under SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0Exp. This machine had the VS SDK 1.1 installed via a command line: msiexec vsski.msi So, I am guessing that I need to pass some properties to the msiexec to tell it that it ...
I have created a Visual Studio Setup project and have set the version to 1.1.5. When I build my setup project the setup.exe file version is 9.0.21022.8. How would I retrieve the 1.1.5 file version from my setup project? ...
I have a web setup project which by default shows the virtual directory in the textbox installer screen. I wish that the virtual directory name cannot be edited by the user and always defaults to the one I have setup in my msi. How can this be achieved? ...
I have a feature in my product that I would like to be installed on demand via assigned advertising (i.e., it's installed for real when an advertised file, shortcut or COM class is accessed). There are some security implications associated with installing this feature, which is why I would like it to be only installed when it's required...