I want to make an advanced installer for my C# application. |I want my application continue its installation after the pre-requisites been installed.
My scenario is:
myApplication requires .net Framework 2
it redirects the user to the Microsoft website.
the user installs the framework.
the installation requires to restart the PC.
STOPPED INSTALLATION
After this step (after restarting) I want myApplication to continue the installation (go to the last stage of the installation)
Any suggestion on how I do this ?!?!
I would suggest taking a look at the nullsoft install system. Use the Modern UI theme and the DotNET macro (http://nsis.sourceforge.net/DotNET). That's everything that you are looking for prebuilt, for free, and you can be up and running with very little effort.
I've had experience releasing applications with this route and it works very well.
Things like InstallShield, or one of the other installer creation tools would be able to handle the pre-requisite side of things for you. If you want to roll your own, then you could check for the framework, perform the various steps you mentioned to install it, then add you setup application to the RunOnce registry key so it starts again on startup.
Looking at something that would handle all the pre-requisites etc for you would be my choice though :-)
Install in this order:
Install the .NET framework
Install your app.
Restart if needed.
You can create an installation project in VS2005/8 to handle installing your app and any needed dependencies.
Are you aware that your compiled c# app itself will do this? The bootstrapper compiled into a .Net exe will contain a redirect to get the framework with a working link to the microsoft website.
Related
We are building an application on .net, And it is an Image Viewer application uses .net 3.5.
And this application will be on a CD along with other images.
My Question is, is it possible to Auto Run this application when you insert a CD on a machine which DOESN'T Contain .NET Frame Work.
Or any other ways of building the application which runs from the CD.
Autorun is a feature of Windows. It does not have anything to do with .NET really. You can use it by placing apropriate files in the root of your CD.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoRun
In order to execute a .NET app WITHOUT .NET framework installed, point the Autorun.inf to an installer of you application, which would be deployed on the CD as well.
The application will fail to run directly when it cannot find the libraries it need.
What you can do is to create a non-.NET dependent bootstrapper, include the framework installer.
So when the CD auto run, run the bootstrapper, the bootstrapper will run the installer. Once installed, run the application.
No, you can't run .NET applications on a computer without the .NET Framework installed. That's a hard rule, and a pretty intuitive one, it seems to me. Somehow, this question still gets asked a lot.
But Auto Run has nothing to do with the .NET Framework. It's a feature provided by the Windows operating system designed to run your setup/installation program directly from the inserted installation medium without requiring any kind of user interaction.
So what you should be doing is creating a setup program for your .NET application. You can do this from within Visual Studio: just create a Setup Project instead of a Windows Forms Application. The setup program will take care of detecting whether or not the computer has the appropriate version of the .NET Framework installed, and installing it if necessary along with the application. The setup bootstrapper will be able to run without the .NET Framework installed, so you can create an autorun.inf file that simply specifies setup.exe as the application to be launched automatically.
I've used mono to do this a few times, not with the static linking as mentioned in the other answer, but by including the mono distribution on the cd (or a subset of it). Mono doesn't seem to do much in the way of modifying registry, system32, etc. So you can do an xcopy deployment of if, or CD deployment in this case. You'll end up running mono.exe
I think Mono supports some form of static linking that doesn't require installation. But I never tried it myself.
I developed a winform application using C# in visual studio 2008. Now i want to run the exe on another PC which doesn't have .net framework or Visual Studio. I am sending the application using Zip via email. The second PC downloads that application and extracts into a normal folder and then it executes the exe file.
But i am getting the exception that .net frame work v 2.0 must be installed.
Can you please tell me how to run that exe without .net frame work installed?
(Amended for #Merhdad's sanity :-))
The short answer: You can. You shouldn't.
The long answer: You could technically create your own unmanaged bootstrapper that goes and download the .NET client profile redist and silently installs it using the MSI APIs, and then loads the CLR and hosts it in the process in order to execute the managed code, after which it silently uninstalls the .NET Framework from the machine.
The Disclaimer: I know few people that could pull that off. They would be the first to tell you not to do it.
The alternative hack answer: You can also use one of the tools #Mehrdad mentioned. i can't comment whether they work or not. However, you should be aware that this leaves your app linked to a specific snapshot of the .Net framework code, and for every security update you need to take, yuo have to relink and release an update of your application as well.
The alternative open source answer: You could ensure your WinForms app builds and runs on Mono, and deploy Mono side-by-side with the app. I've heard it supports that scenario.
The alternative IT answer: You could create a VM appliance with stripped down Window image that has .Net and your app only, and ship it as a single executable.
The right answer: Create an installer for your app that installs the .NET Framework for your customers.
Yes! You can do this with a variety of programs, and Spoon seems to be among the most up-to-date ones.
(Of course, this doesn't mean that you should, just that you can.)
This cannot be done. You must have the .NET Framework in order to run the application.
I solved the problem.I added a package in visual studio.I added Setup and deployment as a new project to my solution.later i added exe to that package.so if client machine runs the setup it'l create exe and can run the application successfully.
yeah,you can do that by converting your whole application to an installer.just check it out, it will helps u a lot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCnfGUT-K-4
How to make generic installation for my C# program, that will work on Win XP, Win 7 32bit and Win 7 64bit ?
I need that all the related components (like Framework... Crystal Reports...MDAC....) will be include and will install only the program that the OS is missing
Thanks in advance
What version of Visual Studio are you using? It matters, because if you're using Express, you're going to need a 3rd party tool If you're using Professional or higher, you can just create a Setup project as described here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307353
if you weren't worried about required components, of course, you could just do an XCOPY deployment, but since you specifically need your prerequisites included with the install, you need to use a tool like the setup project 9which creates an MSI file) or using a third party tool like Installshield.
i think
1- Create 3 separate packages for (Win Xp,Win7-32 , Win7-64)
2- Ask user if user is downloading from the website and push require download from the server. Alternatively , you can write a samll silverlight based application to get the details of user machine.
3- If 2 point is not true than while installing on a user machine get the details first and choose manually which pakage to install.
why i am telling to create specific package because of Microsoft issues pathches time to time and you may need to change the package so keep it seperate will definately help you.
My App will be initially deployed with Windows Installer.
The key characteristics of the solution I am looking for include:
Support silent update while app is
running (or automatically restart
client)
Easy to maintain and manage packing
process
Avoid complex customizations or
installation scripts
Do you have any ideas on how can I achieve this? Even if it means to modify the app code to support any idea.
Application is .net 2.0
Have you considered using ClickOnce for deployment? It has a facility to programatically check for updates and optionally force them to be installed - see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms404263.aspx
You can silently update your application by using the Restart Manager (available in Vista and Win7).
Don't forget that a user is not alway the administrator. Since Vista if you sign your Windows Installer package you can update the application without needing administrator rights from the current user.
For all this to work you need to install your application using the Windows Installer technology. You can use Wix to create an xml file and compile it to an .msi package. Wix integrates nicely with VS.
The Proxy Design Pattern will help you achieve this while this is the pattern used for plugins.
Another short explanation is with the Gang of Four - Proxy Design Pattern.
Having an eye out the Shadow Copying of assemblies is definitely useful for the trick, as you shadow copy your updated assembly to your application assemblies folder, then you can make your application aware of changes, then unload the old assembly and load the new one for the changes to take effect, that is, without even having to restart your application, and this will be absolutely transparent for the end-user.
A more simple approach might be the ClickOnce Deployment which you might be interested to read about following the sugested link.
I am developing Winform application, using C# on .NET 4.0, which need to install scripting langue(s) based on the user selection. What is the best way to detect if a particular scripting environment/Engine for a given langue(Ruby, python, Perl, etc) is installed on client machine and silently install it if not already installed.
Though I agree with idea that a truly "silent" install might not be desirable for the users, there are many different installer packages that support silent installation.
This page actually has a good breakdown of the various installers and the command arguments needed to do unattended and silent installations. I am more familiar with MSI and it has lots of options.
So if you go this route, you'd fire up a Process (uh, Task I guess in C# 4) and run an installer.