I have application on C# created in Visual Studio 2015. I added installer project and created installer of my application. My installer saves path to install directory of my app in registry.
Is it posible when run installer to check if app is currently istalled - run it, if not - run installation progress?
My purpose is: I need to create a CD disk with my app. When user inserts this cd disk at first time the installer is run. When user inserts this cd disk another time the installed app must run without install process.
Autoplay of inserted CDs is something that is frequently turned off (the security risk) so I wouldn't count on anything automatic happening.
The normal behavior of inserting a CD and "running" it for an installed product is that a maintenance/repair operation occurs. It's probably not a good idea to change this behavior. Also, if your installed product is broken in some way and goes into repair mode then the user will be asked to insert the CD to get the install repaired (such as installing deleted files) and again it wouldn't be a good idea if inserting the CD broke this behavior and decided to run your app instead (or at the same time).
So this isn't really an install question because it's about the design of the program you put on the CD that deals with all this when the user runs the CD. It will need to see if the product is already installed, and if it is then run the installed app, except that the user may have put the CD in because Windows asked them to for a repair, and I don't know how the program can detect that it was inserted for a repair. If the product isn't installed then you run your setup. This all code you'd need to write, dealing with the issues that people have raised.
There are many issues here, and also I've never seen a product that behaves like this, so that's something else that users don't expect. It's not a good idea, as everyone is saying, and you almost need to decide which features of Windows Installer you want to break, such as repair and maintenance.
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I have an application written in C# using VisualStudio 2015 and I want to publish it (eg give an exe or installer to somebody to use it on its PC). From VisualStudio there is possibility to click "publish" in solution explorer. The result files are:
-Application files (File folder)
-project.application (Application manifest)
-setup.exe (Application)
As far as I know "manifest" file should be some metadata, but I can execute that file and it gives me an installer (the same as setup.exe). After installing it runs an application (just like setup.exe). It makes me confused - what exactly project.application is? Can I delete it and use only setup.exe? What is the correct way of publishing an app? One last thing: why does the installer run installation on first execution and run an application on any other? I would expect to run installation any time (just like other software).
Thanks
It sounds like a ClickOnce application. See the following link for more information:
ClickOnce security and deployment
In a nutshell:
The installer copies the files to the users AppData and then runs the application.
There are also other options such as checking for updates from a network location or web address. Then when you run the application it checks for updates and uses the manifest to do an incremental update of the application files.
i have a problem with during application installation to client. My application is Microsoft office add-in. And then i try to deploy this application to the client i don't see this files on client side but software centre says that application was successfully installed.
Why it happen? I try to install another applications for example 7Zip.MSI, my own application .msi and anothers, all ok, but if i try to install Microsoft office add-in the files are somewhere disappeared. for script execute i used this command:
msiexec /i "WToysSetup.msi" /qb
i have already installed microsoft word on clients machine.
There are a number of possible issues here. I'm assuming you're using a Visual Studio setup project in the absence of a specific tool being mentioned.
The install requires elevation, but in a silent install Windows won't show the UAC elevation dialog, and it will run without elevation. Most installs like this would fail, but you might find that a Visual Studio generated MSI reverted to a Just me install, and installed the files to an unexpected location (often C:\ and not Program Files).
MSIs can be published or assigned with SCCM-type deployments, one is to the system the other to the user, and that's Everyone or Just me again, so it may have done a per user install because of that.
Regardless of whether it seems to have worked, if it requires elevation and fails then it may just fail silently, which would be one reason you can't find the files. You should be able to see in Programs&Features/Apps whether it is actually installed, but it was installed as a per user/Just me install you'd need to log on as that user to see it in the list of installed apps.
I've been trying to research this the last couple of days and it doesn't seem like there is very good support for beginners. All video tutorials I find don't answer the questions I'm asking.
What I want:
I have an application I've written with .NET 4.6.1 in Visual Studio 2015 and I want to distribute an .exe that automatically checks if there are updates. It seems like this is exactly what OneClick is intended to do.
Where I'm at right now:
I want to publish to a shared drive among multiple people. It seems like I put that file path in the "Publishing Folder Location" which produces Setup.exe, MyApp.application, publish.htm, and Application Files. When you go to publish.htm there is an install button that downloads Setup.exe.
Where I'm stuck:
When you download the Setup.exe file onto your local machine and try running it gives an error. The details say it wasn't able to find the MyApp.application file. It seems that file is responsible for knowing what version of MyApp is currently installed on the users machine so that it can be compared to the download location (in my case the shared drive) to see if updates are available.
What am I missing? Do I misunderstand the purpose of OneClick publishing? Shouldn't users be able to visit the publish.htm once to get an .exe and that .exe is used to launch my application and look for updates first? I really appreciate any insight on this topic!
PS I've read over all the MSDN documentation, but it isn't user friendly to beginners in my opinion. Or maybe I'm just slow : )
You understand it exactly right, but when a user navigates to the html page, it downloads multiple files. The .exe, the .application and other supporting files.
You are correct in assuming ClickOnce is what you want. What I've found is the .net dependencies are very particular when using click once. You have to make sure each machine has the correct version of the framework and then they can use the htm site.
What I prefer doing is distributing the .application file to the users machine and just letting them run that. It will check for updates on the server every time it is ran and copy all the necessary decencies to the users Local directory.
You have to direct the users to the .application-File.
That one is responible for versioning (Updating) and executing your Application.
If you execute the .exe it will look for the .application-file to find the infos about the version, which should be installed/downloaded.
NOTE
Not all Browsers (in case of internet/intranet-deployment) support ClickOnce. But there are extensions for almost every browser
I have a C# Windows Forms project that I created.
When i click "Publish" it deploys this click-once application that is only for a single user. If I run the install on my admin account, then there is a shortcut in my AppData that i can click on to run my program. If I try copying that shortcut to C:\users\Public what happens is that another click-once application gets placed on the users' desktop. That user then has to run the install and is annoying cause If i have an update, each user has to uninstall and reinstall the new application. Is there any way to configure VS 2015 to publish in a way that creates an "regular" install for all users?
RobinDotNet addressed that in a blog post a while back:
Doing an all-users install is counter to the design goals of ClickOnce deployment, so I think it’s going to be something everyone has to live with, at least for now. Using XCopy or a setup & deployment package and rolling your own incremental update methodology would be the way to go if you absolutely have to have an All Users installation
https://robindotnet.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/installing-a-clickonce-application-for-all-users/
There are more alternative deployment methods listed in this SO answer that might work for you.
You can not do this using ClickOnce. You may want to install Windows Installer XML to create regular MSI installers. It nowadays integrates with Visual Studio.
As others have pointed out CO is per user. There is no install for all users on the machine option.
However I feel you are either misinformed or badly misconfigured something regarding the implications when it comes to upgrades. Click Once upgrades don't require the user to uninstall, download, and install a new version. That wouldn't exactly be click ONCE.
You can configure your ClickOnce app to automatically detect, fetch, and apply upgrades as you make them available. This can be done either in code so you can control it programmatically or by configuration (i.e. check for updates every time the application starts).
So yes each user would need to install the application once but that would be the end of their involvement.
Actually I want to run exe file(My Job.exe) Through window Service in C# but window service should be started automatically when I start the Computer?
I have already added Window Service (MyService) manually. I have also setup project of My application where I also added this service so that I can also be installed when I install my Application.
I have serviceInstaller1 with property
StartType=Automatic;ServiceName=MyService.
I also have serviceProcessInstaller1 with Property
Account=LocalSystem;
When I run this my Applicationo gets installed but MyService don't get installed and I also not see it in Service of Computer Management.
Could any body please help me I already spend two days on it but not finding proper guidline. thanks in Advance.
How is your application being installed? Did you create an installer (.msi file) for it? It sounds like you're trying to implement your own installer instead of using existing tool to do this.
I recommend Advanced Installer. It is a very powerful installer generator and has all the features you need in the free version, and more importantly, it's very easy to use. This tool lets you create an install wizard with the ability to patch and uninstall your software (including services, registry values, files, etc).
I recently have one project with windows service in VS2010 and .Net 4.5 and user OS will be Windows Server 2008. I was unable to create fully functional installation a long time, and still i dont have, but request are changed so no need for installation file. But i can give you advice "How to do".
If you don't have purchased version of InstallShield you need to find some other program for creating installation file.
For installation you need just to copy you .exe output of service and one batch file witch will have next content:
#ECHO off
"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\InstallUtil.exe" "%~dp0%<filename>.exe"
pause
and then you need to run with administration rights this batch file.
Both files (.exe and .bat) must be in same folder.
You can delete pause command but then you will not see if registration of service was successfully.
Make sure that you have installed target .NET Framework on PC.
I hope that this will help you.
If you just need to run your exe file(My Job.exe) when the system starts up you could add your exe to the Windows Task Scheduler.
Is there any specific purpose for using a Windows service?
The reason that I am saying this is that you have a wide variety of options to invoke you exe as follows
Schedule based on common recurring events, i.e. When the computer starts or When a user logs on.
Schedule based on the calendar, i.e. Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or One time.
Advanced options like execution based on events, etc.