So I made a C# project in visual studio with 3 class library projects. Everything works fine when debugging but When I try to deploy. Database and Program installs just fine but when I try to open the Application, I get an Assembly or File not Found Exception. The DLL he can't find is a class library in my project.
On the File System Editor, VS automatically detected the dependencies and included the 3 dll files in to application directory. I tried excluding these dll's and just adding the class library projects's primary output's (Same dll) but still the same error.
I used a Custom Installer class for creating my database on installation. But I don't think that is relevant.
If you have verified that your 3 assemblies are indeed deployed to your destination folder,
it could very well be an another dependency that you have not included in your setup project.
Please double check that you indeed have the right number of assemblies included.
You can also right click the setup project and refresh dependencies.
Have you checked that dependencies in the setup project aren't excluded (by mistake)?
Furthermore, it may also be a .NET profile issue. Do you depend on assemblies that are only available in the full .NET profile, and your destination only has the client profile installed?
In worst case, run the SysInternals process monitor and that way figure out which assembly is missing.
you need to include all dll's that are not part of the .net framework with your deployable. Your custom installer will copy these files to the location of the executable on install.
i usually create a folder called /deploy and copy all my needed dlls in there. I also change my projects settings to output to the /deploy-directory (instead of bin/). after you build, this directory will contain all dll's and other resources needed to run the application.
Related
I wrote an application that work with Git using the library LibGit2Sharp, everything works properly.
After finishing development, we publish to a common folder from which everyone works.
I want to create an installation for the application and that everyone will install it.
To create an installation for the application, I added a new Setup Project to Solution and referenced all the projects in Solution to it.
I installed the app and it runs, but crashes when trying to work with Git.
The error I get:
DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL 'git2-106a5f2' or one of its dependencies: The specified module could not be found.
The point is that the Dll file described exists in the installation folder as it exists in the Publish folder.
Is there anything I should have taken into account during the installation process?
what am I missing?
This error can occur if the required dependencies of the "git2-106a5f2" DLL are not installed or are not located in the PATH. If the necessary dependencies are installed and found in the PATH, you may check for them. If not, you may do so when installing by adding them to the PATH.
Another choice is to deliver your program along with the installation package that contains the necessary dependencies.
By doing this, regardless of the user's environment, you can make sure that your application always has access to the necessary dependencies.
Make sure you are using the appropriate version of the "git2-106a5f2" DLL for your program by checking to see if it is an x86 or x64 DLL. Use the x86 version of the DLL if your program was created for that architecture, and the x64 version if it was.
I have a large solution currently under VS2010, with lots of projects and dependencies. Some of them are installed to the GAC, some of them are just included from a "lib" folder. I need to build one of my projects (specifically a WinForms app) to able to run on any, non-development computers without any installation process (except for the .NET runtime of course), just as portable apps do.
For this to work, I need to have all of the referenced DLLs and their whole dependency tree in the output folder of my EXE. I can do it for exemple by marking the dependencies to "Copy local" in the properties window, but that works only for the direct references of the EXE project, so it's far not enough. Another way is to make a setup project, but my client and also I want to avoid that (in the final version I'm gonna use ClickOnce). Of course I can always do it purely by hand, gathering all the DLLs manually, but that's quite a nightmare.
Is there some tool, msbuild trick, command-line option, whatever hack to force Visual Studio to gather the whole dependency tree of my EXE during build, and copy them to the output folder? So that I could just ZIP everything together and send to my client.
I actually chose a somewhat "middle" solution, the following way.
I created a "dummy" setup project, not caring about setting anything but adding the project outputs (primary output, localized resources, contents, etc.). It was a 2 minute task this way.
I built the setup project, and got the MSI file as the output.
I've extracted the contents of the MSI file to a specific folder, called "MyAppPortable" for example. I found the solution here. The command-line command is
msiexec /a "absolute_path_to_my_MSI_output" /qb TARGETDIR="absolute_path_to_my_desired_output_folder"
I got the full application with all of its resolved dependencies (except for late-binding dependencies, but I took care of them manually, by adding them as references to my projects). I could ZIP the whole folder, put it on another computer, and voila, everything worked fine.
Basically, using Visual Studio, you can set all of your Solution's Projects to build into the same Output folder and use this folder as your Windows Form application folder (where the application EXE will reside).
By doing this, you will coordinate all of the possible assemblies references that your app is depend on.
In VS 2012, right-click on a Project => Properties => Select Build (left pane) => Set your Output path:
I would select a a solution-level folder as the Output path.
And if it's prohibited to perform such a modification at your workplace so I would suggest you to use dependency analysis tools like the following in order to interrogate and gather the appropriate assemblies that your app is depend on and will require at run-time:
Dependency Walker
NDepend
Red-Gate Reflector
Update:
Using the above mentioned tools will not yields assemblies references which are late-bounded (at run-time), for this case you may use: Fusion (the Assembly Binding Log Viewer)
Check out the Fody/Costura recommendation from this question:
Embedding DLLs in a compiled executable
It's great! I just tried it out for a similar need and in less then a few minutes I had a completely portable (except the .Net framework) exe that I could easily give to co-workers.
The C# application that I'm trying to deploy has two critical references, A.dll and B.dll.
First, I used InstallShield LE which includes everything (.dll's and .pdb's) in release folder into application files, application is deployed to different computers without problem. The app is about 6M after installation.
Then, I started to use VS installer, including "primary output" into application folder. I can see both A.dll and B.dll are included. After install the app on another computer, A and B exist in the installation directory too. When I run the application, it gives me "could not load file or assembly "B.dll" or one of its dependencies" error. B.dll only depends on .NET framework. The app is only 3M after installation because the installation directory has only the .dll's (no .pdb's).
Did I miss anything here? Any idea would be helpful, Thank you.
Edit:
The difference between A.dll and B.dll is that B.dll is compiled from a C++/cli program while A.dll is from C#. Does this make them different in deployment?
I would suggest using Fusion log viewer on the target machine to determine why the DLL is not found.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/e74a18c4.aspx
Sometimes Fuslogvw can be a pain to get working, if so try restarting the machine, or see any of the blog posts about it
https://www.google.ca/search?q=fuslogvw.exe&oq=fuslog
I'm sure once you find the reason (in the logs) it will be obvious what the problem is with the MSI, but if not post your findings.
I am setting up an installer project for a C# solution and I encounter a dependency problem:
In my solution, I have 4 independent project outputs – one windows service and three executables, who all share between them some references.
I need the installer to install all four of them in order for the solution to work.
I've set up an installation folder for each project output under "Application folder" in the "File system on target machine" dialog, added the project output of the windows service successfully in its folder. But when I continue to try and add the executables' project outputs in their folders the assemblies already carried into the windows service folder are not carried into the executable folder, and following the installation the executables won't run as they are missing dependencies.
I can manually add the missing assemblies to the executables' folders, but it seems that this is not how it should be done and there's something I'm missing.
Any ideas?
Well you should create a new project in the solution, and set the "installer" to be the output of your main application (or main applications) it should solve the dependencies itself.
I was having what I think is the problem that was originally described. I have a Winform app and a console application as two separate projects, but a single setup project handles both.
Both the Winform app and the console app use the same two external assemblies: one not part of the solution (reference to a file in a folder), and the other from a C# class project (reference to the project).
What I have found is that the installer assumes that the project output is all combined into a single folder on the installation machine. Therefore, all of the common assemblies will also co-reside with the executables that need them. So if you add the project output from the first executable into the folder, that is why you see all its dependencies appear, and then when the second project output is added, only the assemblies not already added will appear.
It doesn't matter if you create subfolders under the Application folder, Visual Studio appears to treat the Application Folder as a whole unit... as far as Project Output (exe, dll and res) are concerned.
There are two ways to solve this. The first is to create a separate installation project for each executable. In a large project, this could be a lot of setup projects.
If you want to keep everything in a single installation, a better option is to use the GAC for the shared assemblies, which is described in another Stack Overflow article here: Use Visual Studio Setup Project to automatically register and GAC a COM Interop DLL
MSI can get the job done. Right-click "File System on Target Machine",
Add, GAC. Right-click that added folder, Add, Project Output. That
ensures the assembly is gac-ed.
The GAC is the better solution in my mind, because your assemblies are managed by the .NET layer if you later make changes and enhancements to them. One of the benefits of .NET is to eliminate the old "DLL hell" issues that were in Win 98 and previous versions of Windows. I highly recommend using it for your common code.
I finished a project.I am trying create a setup .
My Problem is that :after I create setup project dll files that I used in project added to same folder with my .exe file like
ApplicationFolder(Folder)
Devexpress.Data.dll
Devexpress.Util..dll
.
.
project.exe
but I want to get it different folder.
like
ApplicationFolder(Folder)
MYDLLFILES(Folder)
project.exe(exe file)
how can I make this? Thanks a lot
This is not only a problem of setup. unless you are already handling this in the app.config and/or with appdomain.assemblyresolve event your application will not work at all on the user's machines once those required references will not be available in the same folder if the .exe file.
Surely you could isolate every single file and tell the setup project where to put it but your program has to be modifief to then look for those files in those other locations.
I accidentally faced this problem today, I want to add some separate dll files into the setup package (I have to do this because I can't add reference of these dll files into my C# program , these dll files are of 3rd-party software).
I did as following:
Right click on Setup Project > Add > Assembly and then browse to dll which I need, then press OK button.
These dll files will be included into Setup project, and will be packaged into setup file also.
Hth.
The problem is that Visual Studio setup projects will automatically include referenced DLLs for you so you won't be able to customize their location with these setup projects.
See also the following articles by DevExpress:
How to deploy WinForms applications on client machines
How to distribute applications which use Developer Express .NET Windows Forms controls
The second article explains how to register DLLs copied to a different location.
By the way we're also also deploying a big app using these VS setup projects and our base installation folder is full of DevExpress and other DLLs. I agree that it looks totally ugly and I'd also prefer a clean structure with a lib subfolder, but nobody cares about that. Customers don't start our application from the installation folder, they use the shortcuts.