Develop Reference

C#: Create custom msi file

I need to create a custom installer to deploy a specific program. But there are a few checks and balances that needs take place during intallation, and even though I have an Advanced Installer license, it just struggles to do everything I need.
I'm looking for a way to create my own msi file using c#. Running the msi file it will then start a win forms wizard, which in turn will do a number of items, including copying files to the host PC.
I'm not sure how I can "include" my set of files into a single msi file. How to you "copy" files into an msi and how can you read again from it?
I can't even give a proper sample code of what I've tried as I don't know where to start.
This just feels like it should be a duplicate question, but I can't find it.

I work at Advanced Installer, since you said you already have a license let's help you get a return of investment on that ;)
First of all, I seriously doubt you need to reinvent the wheel and write your own code that installs/copies files on the machine. This is a basic action performed by all installer authoring tools, and even though it seems simple when you first think about it, it is not. You don't want to write code that handles rollbacks (if your install fails), reference counts (if a file is shared somehow), repair/self-healing operations (if somehow a DLL gets corrupted or missing post-install), or cover other standard Windows Installer scenarios.
Since you didn't explain with full details what you are trying to do I will give you some short example on how to do each of the steps you mentioned:
Adding files in a setup package - this is a link to a tutorial created with a free edition, but the same steps apply for Professional and Enterprise editions.
Searching files on a disk and retrieving values from them. - for this, you need to use the built-in support from Search page. There you can either simply search for a file and return its path or search for an element inside an INI or XML file and return its value inside a property.
Windows Installer properties are the equivalent of variables in your code. You can use them all over the installer project to pass/get/validate values.
Designing custom dialogs. Most professional installer authoring tools have support to build custom dialogs. The previous link is for a tutorial on how you can do that with Advanced Installer.
During the UI stages, you can include and custom C# code to perform additional validations or data retrieval operations and pass that to or from the installer using properties. if you need it.
The custom installer dialogs support is available starting with the Enterprise edition. The Professional and Free editions include the standard dialogs, but with no options to customize them.
Another way to interact with users is to design an UI experience inside your application that is visible only when the users launch the application for the first time. So, this is not a part of your installer. It will be code that you write inside your application and you can provide a first-launch experience similar to what you see when you install Office for example. If you can give me more details on what you want to do/capture in those custom dialogs, I will try to recommend you the best approach.

Conflict : 'space Bar' changes to 'tab' when something is edited

I am getting this conflict every now and then, the spaces(....) are shown as a tab(->) when I am changing something in code. I am attaching an image, where I compared my file with the previous one. If anyone encountered with same error please let me know.
Conflict Image:

You can either change to an external comparer, one that can be configured or setup the code formatting in visual studio to adhere to the project formating guidelines whatever they are.
To configure the Visual Studio, just go Tools --> Options --> Text editor --> All languages (or the one you are using) --> Tabs and change the settings to whatever behaviour works for you.

You seem to have the editor tool configured the use tabs instead of spaces.
How you can control this in VS is answered by https://stackoverflow.com/a/51922994/3906760.
There is, however, another way how this could be controled from "the outside". There is editorconfig (you can spot this, if there is an .editorconfig file your repository), then on save the files will be converted automatically. This is also a way, to consistently push the coding rules to other developers.

Use tabs for indentation but save with spaces in Visual Studio

I was wondering if it's possible to use tabs for indenting my C# code in Visual Studio 2013, but save the file with all tabs converted into spaces automatically. I know this can be changed in settings and then autoindenting used to fix it to the right one, but this isn't automatic.
The reason behind this is that I am currently working in a group where spaces are preffered way of indenting code, but this setup isn't convenient for me - having to click backspace 4 times after an exceeding tab (or undoing - which is almost the same inconvenience, albeit not that much) is quite annoying.
I don't want to interfere with my group's setup (nor could I, actually), but would like an easier way to traverse my code locally. We use Git for project sharing, so maybe if this cannot be made in VS maybe Git can do it?
Note: I searched Stack and Google, but couldn't find adequate answer due to arguments over which indentation technique is better. This post is not supposted to start another discussion about this either.

Since you're using Git, you could try checking out tabs and converting to spaces on checkin. This might cause issues of its own, but it might also solve your problem. This question should tell you how to do that if you're interested. It deals with Python, but I imagine it would do the same for C# just fine if you replace .py with .cs. Here's the accepted answer for completeness:
In your repository, add a file .git/info/attributes which contains:
*.py filter=tabspace
Linux/Unix
Now run the commands:
git config --global filter.tabspace.smudge 'unexpand --tabs=4 --first-only'
git config --global filter.tabspace.clean 'expand --tabs=4 --initial'
OS X
First install coreutils with brew:
brew install coreutils
Now run the commands:
git config --global filter.tabspace.smudge 'gunexpand --tabs=4 --first-only'
git config --global filter.tabspace.clean 'gexpand --tabs=4 --initial'
All systems
You may now check out all the files of your project. You can do that
with:
git checkout HEAD -- **
Although I too prefer tabs, I also suggest finding out how to use your tools effectively with the project's style. Maybe you could just find a way to make backspace delete sets of 4 spaces when found?

Since your primary issue deals with formatting concerns, I would recommend using Format Document (Ctrl+K,Ctrl+D or Edit>Advanced>Format Document or Format Selection) to fix this.
Its fast and will correct indentation for the whole file/section at once, and you don't have to worry about altering the IDE save behaviors.
If you are trying to keep everything well organized as-you-type-it, you may not be using the provided tools efficiently.

Can I have global preprocessor definitions in C# library?

In C# you can have conditional compilation by using macros similar to the C/C++ syntax. This would enable the following to happen:
#define MYMACRO
....
#if MYMACRO
//some C# code logic
#else
//some other C# code logic
I need to define some macros in a dedicated file in a C# library project, and I need these macros to be visible inside the entire library, once defined. The problem is that the above code works only for a single file.
Another way I know to work around this, is to add the macros to the build command. This would take care of defining the macros for the entire .dll and I will have the #if - #else checks working wherever I want inside the library. The issues with this approach is that I want to be able to maintain the macros easily. Having them in a file inside the project will be perfect. I'd like to have some comments inside too, so that I will know what each macro is doing. This will not be applicable if I have to pass the macros as build parameters. Another reason is being able to turn a macro on/off by simply commenting it and examining the behavior.
Is there a decent way to achieve my requirement? I'd prefer not to deal with any build automation tools like MSBuild, NAnt or anything like this, still if no other way is possible I'd appreciate an advice which one you consider a better choice.

You #define them for an entire project with Project + Properties, Build tab, "Conditional compilation symbols" setting. This sets the <DefineConstants> element in the project file. You override this property with msbuild by giving it the /property:DefineConstants="MYMACRO" command line option.

I'd also advise putting the macros in the project settings (csproj file) as #Hans Passant suggests.
If you need the defines documented, you could add a documentation file to the solution explaining what the settings mean.
If there aren't too many variants, you could define a new project configuration for each one. That will allow you to pre-configure the necessary list of #defines for each variant, and then simply switch between them from the configuration combo box in the toolbar. If you want to temporarily disable one option, you could duplicate the current configuration and remove the #define, then delete the config later when you've tested it.
The next option I can suggest to make it "easier" (by combining the settings and docs into a single file as you've suggested) would be to use a simple text file (settings + comments) to configure the project, and spend 15 minutes writing a quick c# app to read this file and write the settings it contains into the .csproj file - it's just XML so should be a trivial app to write. You'd be able to easily tweak this file and run your updater app to chnage the project settings. If it's something you will do often, spend 30 minutes on it and add a UI with checkboxes to choose the settings more easily.
The concept you're describing sounds rather odd, though. The point of a library is usually that you have one standardised lump of code that can be shared by many clients, so changing these sort of defines to reconfigure the whole library a lot is not something that I'd expect to need to do very often. Perhaps you have good reasons, but it may be worth reviewing why you need to solve this #define problem.
(e.g. If you have lots of customers who need different variants of the "library", the best approach will be to use configurations (described above) to allow you to build all needed variants in a batch build. If you are just trying out lots of different algorithms/techniques then can you redesign chunks of the library so that you can restrict the impact of most #defines to just to a single .cs file so they no longer need to be global? Perhaps the library shouldn't be in a single dll, or a plug-in architecture is needed to allow you to pick and choose the "modules" that are included within the library)

C# “preprocessor” directives don't work the same as C preprocessor directives. The most important difference for you is that there is no equivalent of #include. It's not needed under normal circumstances, because C# doesn't have (or need) header files. I don't think what you want is possible, unless you somehow create your own preprocessor or read the file with #defines and make them into parameters of msbuild.
But I think it would be easier for you to use more object-oriented approach: encapsulate the different approaches into classes and use them. To specify which one of them to use, you could use dependency injection. That means you would have to ship a DI library along with your library, but I think that's a price worth paying.
Also, this approach would alleviate a problem with conditional compilation: specifying different set of symbols may break the build in unexpected ways.

Using GUI
Open the project in Visual Studio
Right-Click on the project file in the solution explorer go to properties
Go to Build tab and Make sure you select the All Configurations in the configuration drop down
Make sure selected the All Platforms in Platform drop-down
Type the Preprocessor Definitions you want in the Conditional Compilation Symbols text box separated by semicolon
To the Project file
Open the project file in a text editor
Copy and paste this code to end of existing PropertyGroup
<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(VariableName)'=='VarableValue'">
<DefineConstants>PDEF1;PDEF2;PDEF3</DefineConstants>
</PropertyGroup>
If you not required to add a condition, delete the Condition="'$(VariableName)'=='VarableValue'" part
Save the project file and open from Visual Studio
From: https://codeketchup.blogspot.sg/2018/04/how-to-add-project-level-preprocessor.html

Deploy/programmatically create Outlook Rule to run Script

I need to deploy an Outlook rule that runs a script. So in other words I need deploy both an Outlook rule and the script it runs. I know I can get users to import the rwz rule file and maybe paste in the script, but I wondered if there was a more user friendly way.
I started writing a C# program to create the rule, but I cannot see a way to set the action to run a script. Is this possible?
Cheers, Jamie

The library https://github.com/hughbe/OutlookRulesReader contains a specification and reference implementation library (in Swift) for reading and writing Outlook Rules Files
A full description of the format can be found here

The Rules Wizard (and .rwz files in particular) are a dead end as far as deployment is concerned.
According to the MSDN article on Specifying Rule Actions, the "start a script" rule cannot be created programmatically, so that's not an option either.
You need to start looking into different options. As going the C# way seems an option, those include:
Replacing the "rule" by an add-in that handles the same events that trigger the rule conditions, the executes the desired "script" code.
Replacing both the rule AND the script by the add-in.
If you are on Exchange, there are rules and triggers on that level too that have some more options.
We can't really advice you on the most appropriate route unless you share some more detail on what it is your rule and script are doing.

Based on the work of Hugh Bellamy, Outlook Redemption library (I am its author) as of version 6.0 fully supports client side rules (along with import and export of RWZ files) through the RDOClientRules collection.