A while ago I have created a program in visual studio and installed it on another computer which I was needed to install before a lot of .NET files, framework files, sqla and sdk files and more, and just then, I was able to activate the program.
It was a windowsForms application on desktop- so this is what I have tried.
Please how can I make it easier?
How can I install the program on another computer including already all of the files?
Instead of installing them separately?
Maybe on dll?
I dont know but im sure there is an easier way doing it
Though your question is not clear, you can create an MSI using WixToolSet, InstallShield,Advanced Installer, etc.
For instance, if you are using Wix, you can install the Wix Extension in visual studio, create a wix project and the compile it into an MSI with all the files you want included in the final install.
You can find many sources on the net that can give you tutorials to get you start, like codeproject
Related
I am making an installer using NSIS and my gameplan was to
Build the startup project
Copy the Files created from the bin/(x86) or bin/x64 folder and embed them in the installer
The problem is that some files do not get included. From what I have seen, these files are exclusively Microsoft dlls. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can include them?
My idea is to parse through the csProj file and loop through every file on the Item-Group -> PublishFile node, check if it is in the bin subfolder, if it is not,embed the file in the installer.
Is there a simpler/better way to do this? If not, is there atleast a class(perhaps a DTE class) that represents the contents of the csProj file so I wouldn't need to parse xml? I have looked around and I couldn't find any.
From your original post what I can understand is that, you are building some sort of C# application and want to build a installer for the same.
Now why do you need to pack Microsoft Dlls?
Microsoft do provide every redistributable packages to be installed on end-user computer. You need to analyze what are the packages you need when running your application on a computer that doesn't have Visual Studio installed.
I think you only need .Net Framework and SQL redist packages. And these things can be installed silent during installation. And this is the proer approach.
I'm actually working on a game during my internship. I made it with XNA game studio and used Visual studio 2012 (used a topic on this site to install it...). Now that i'm almost done with the code, I'm looking into make an exe file which will install the game. As it may be installed on computers where XNA and .NET redistributables aren't installed, the package should install them with the game, or it'll not work.
So I'm looking for two things :
How to generate binary files for my XNA project, as I don't want all the users to read my work. I know how to do it on VS2010, but on VS2012 I just can't find where's the option to generate them.
Once I got the binaries, I want to know how to make an exe file which will install them and the redistributables. I know there's some tools to do it, but I don't know what to use.
Thanks in advance for helping me !
They have removed the installer project type from VS2012, checkout WIX. Its a bit clumsy to get started, but once you get a hang of it, its much more powerfull than VS2010 installer project
http://wixtoolset.org/
I just made my first C# application in Visual Studio 2012 and I want to export it in some way so other people could use it in they computers (including computers without Visual Studio 2012). How can I do it? I'm new at C# and I couldn't find anything that I could understand. Can someone explain or indicate some site with a good (and maybe didactic) explanation on how it works? I have only made C/C++ programs by now, and they I just needed the .exe file, but, based on what I could find, I need something else to send a C# program to others to use.
Sory for the bad English and thanks for those who help.
Right-click the project in VS 2012, and choose Publish... from the context menu. Publishing to a file lets you create an installer:
Choose a location in the file system to which you would like to save the installer
Click [Finish]
Wait for the publishing operation to complete
A Setup.exe installer file will be created at the location that you have selected in the first step of the publish wizard. Share the installer with the people to whom you would like to give your application.
After building your project, you will find an EXE file in bin\(Debug or Release)
Check also the .net framework that it is required in order for c# apps to run. You can find what framework your app is build in projext properties. If the target computer has an old os (XP) maybe the .net framework needs also to be installed
You need any computer that wants to run it to be windows, and running the correct version of the .net framework. If it's a program that's created with VS2012, that'll be .net 2.0 to 4.5.2. After that, you need to find the location of your program, and you can just copy the debug folder that you are currently running from, and your program will work.
I have this problem. I want to build an installer for my c# solution, that will be placed in a folder with other installation folders and files that are needed to be copied to the installed folder. So that is easy, I just copy them to the folder I create using the folder structure I want.
Now, I want also to install another program and run a .exe file I've created to unzip some files for me. For that I need to copy 2 .exe files and 2 dlls (for the exes) to the folder to which I am installing and create 2 custom actions that will use them. That I've managed to do.
After that I want to delete those 4 extra files, as the user does not need them and shouldn't even be aware they are there. How to do so? I couldn't find a way in the built in setup project preferences + I do not know how to make a custom installer class.
A bonus question, is how to make the other installer (one of the .exe files is just a plain installer) install quietly to any path? I do not want the user to see an installer pop out of my program installer.
Thanks!
Some commercial setup authoring tools support temporary files. They are extracted when the installation starts and automatically removed when the installation ends. They are never registered with Windows Installer.
You can find a list of setup tools here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_installation_software
Regarding the prerequisite, it depends on its setup package. You can install it silently only if it supports this through its command line.
Don't. You will get a ton of problems with Windows Installer trying to automatically repair your applications and such things. You might be able to solve the problem with a more advanced installer creator, such as WiX.
I'm developing an open source C# application. For awhile now, I've been using a basic .NET installer I coded myself. However, with a recent change, that is no longer practical for me, as I'd have to add a large number of files to the installer - and they may change with each release. A ZIP file is also not practical.
I've done some checking online, I see a lot of MSI, ClickOnce, Self-extracting ZIPs, and (imo the most promising) the NSIS system. None of them seem to exactly fit my needs, so I'm looking for advice on which system to use.
Actual installing of my program is very simple. Basically, I just need to copy the bin\Release directory (and all subdirs) to the client's computer. I've been achieving this somewhat ad-hoc, by embedding every file in my .NET installer, and maintaining a file table of what goes where.
Unfortunately, I just localized my app. I now have 30+ .resx files (Which are compiled to dlls and placed into MORE subdirectories by Visual Studio) and, obviously, it's impractical to add 30+ folders and DLLs to my installer. Hence why I'm on this search.
There's also a few other requirements:
The installer should search predefined directories for a specified .exe. (My app is designed to be a drop in replacement) If the .exe is not found, it should prompt for its location
The installer should verify that "OldApp.exe.bak" exists. If not, it should rename "OldApp.exe" to "OldApp.exe.bak"
The installer should update files. Ie, if "Culture.de.dll" hasn't changed, the installer will leave it alone.
The installer should work with all Windows versions of all .NET IDEs (VS, SharpDevelop, Mono, ect) but does not need to work on other platforms.
When I build the solution, the installer should be automatically regenerated. In other words, it should be run-able for by "Post-build" section.
The installer generation must be able to be added to a source code repo. This is so that anyone who downloads the source of my app can compile the installer as well.
Sorry for the long post, I figured it was better to post more than less.
I'd recommend SharpSetup. It combines WiX and C# for a pretty flexible implementation. Not much I've found it can't accomplish.
We use WIX extensively: http://wix.codeplex.com/
You may have to customize your installers with some exit routines to do things out of the ordinary, but there are hooks in Windows Installer framework that let you do that.
You can put these definition files (XML) in your source control, and you can configure a build to execute the installation. However, anyone that gets your source would need to have the WIX utilities installed.
I would recommend NSIS. From my experience any installer feature that I have required has been covered in NSIS documentation or community examples. I can't comment on NSIS integration with Visual Studio as I use NSIS integrated with my Jenkins build server. There appears to be a free Visual Studio Add-In called Visual & Installer which provides NSIS integration with Visual Studio. I have not personally used it but it appears to be currently actively developed so might be worth checking out.
WIX is a good one. According to Wikipedia, it is used by Microsoft to produce installers for some of their own products.