I have a Word AddIn which uses one setting to retrieve information from a webservice. This setting is stored in de settings section of the project (see image)
To be able to change this setting after the application is compiled, the access modifier is set to public. When I compile the application and use it in Word, I only have to change the ConfigURL in de [applicaitonname].dll.config. This works perfectly, the new URL is applied when trying to retrieve information from another webserivce address (URL).
In this project, I also have a Wix project to create an MSI for this AddIn. Now when I use the MSI to install the AddIn on a computer and after the installation, I change the ConfigURL, the new value is not applied, it still uses the value which was set when creating the MSI.
does anyone know if it is possible to create an MSI for deployment, and still able to change settings values in the config file after installation?
I assume that your Wix project installs the AddIn in the Program Files folder. If that's the case then most likely your user doesn't have the write permissions to this folder. You can either adjust your Wix project to setup necessary permissions to the AddIn's folder or deploy your configuration file to a different location e.g. %APPDATA%\Roaming\[AppName].
From what I've found the VSTO customization DLLs are always loaded from a temporary folder location and not from the original location irrespective of whether ClickOnce cache is used or not. The location of the temporary folder is the Shadow copy folder of .NET framework which is mentioned under the registry key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Fusion\DownloadCacheLocation.
Shadow Copy is a feature where DLLs can be updated while they are being used. To implement this feature, DLLs are copied to a temporary location when they are being used so that DLL at original location can be updated.
The Shadow copy feature has been used in VSTO from the initial version and there is no way to disable it. Shadow copy can be disabled for .NET AppDomain while creating an AppDomain but in the case of VSTO customization, the developer has no control over the way AppDomain is created and hence cannot configure the behavior.
In order to load a configuration file, it must be located in the same folder where the assembly is loaded from. Unfortunately, your config file does not get copied to the shadow cache so it seems it uses some hardcoded values.
In order to solve this issue, you can explicitly load a configuration file from the installation folder. Take a look at this answer for more information.
Related
We're making a project that is primarily a Windows Service EXE.
We're using WIX (with heat) to create an installer, that creates the relevant files and registers the EXE with Windows Services.
We've got to the point of implementing the installer upgrade logic, which largely JustWorks(TM) by setting the Version attribute of the Product tag in the .wxs file.
One issue that I can't see how to manage is the config files of the tool.
The tool has various config settings that can be modified from within the tool.
We're using ASP.NET, which has built in settings/config management, and the config settings that get changed are declared as "User" settings. When we run the save the config changes, it creates a secondary config file which overrides the default settings in the primary config file.
The primary config file exists at <installRoot>\MyCustomService.exe.config, and the secondary config file is at <complicated\Path>\vX.Y.Z\user.config.
Where X.Y.Z is the AssemblyInfo version number which is held in sync with the WIX Version number.
When we install a new version, the tool starts looking in a new path for the user.config ... and can't find it. So functionally, installing a new version resets all of the user's configuration :( .
What is the appropriate way to get a WIX upgrade installation to maintain the existing config?
ASP.NET config supports upgrading user settings from one version to the next, using the .Upgrade() method. You're better off using that rather than manage this in the installer.
This question has details on how to manage that: How do you keep user.config settings across different assembly versions in .net?
but the core solution is:
if (Settings.Default.UpgradeRequired)
{
Settings.Default.Upgrade();
Settings.Default.UpgradeRequired = false;
Settings.Default.Save();
}
Having created UpdateRequired as a user property existing only to manage this process
I need to change an entry of a .NET config file.
The problem is that the App.config in the project folder needs to stay untouched, because otherwise the application won't work within the IDE anymore.
I need the installed .NET config file changed after its installation.
Whenever I try to reference that file and build my installer, i get an error that the file can't be found. Of course it can't be found there, because the installation folder doesn't exist, when I build the installer.
How can I achieve that goal?
You are not saying how you are editing it, but WIX has two facilities for doing this properly. You can use XmlFile or XmlConfig. These are scheduled at the proper time by WIX for you. You can set the path to the file a few ways as they accept a formatted string, so you can use an expected installed path or the file id.
I have a windows forms application which stores data in
My.Computer.FileSystem.SpecialDirectories.CurrentUserApplicationData + "\a.xml"
When I run and test this path, it shows path as:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\<Manufacture name>\<Product Name>\1.0.0.0\a.xml
I want to delete above file at the time of uninstall.
So I have created custom action using installer class (please note that I have created installer class in main project, not in setup project as setup project does not show option to add installer class). In installer class, I have override uninstall method and using same above code
My.Computer.FileSystem.SpecialDirectories.CurrentUserApplicationData + "\a.xml"
I have tried to delete file. Obviously I have pointed it to uninstall folder in setup project which should delete above file, but I can see that in setup project above is taking different path. It is taking path as
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Corporation\Windows Installer - Unicode\5.0.7600.16385\a.xml
I am using Visual Studio 2013. Please suggest how to solve this problem.
The easiest workaround I found for this issue is to change the version number so no need to delete any file as it is creating different directory for different version number.
I am in the process of learning WIX all thanks to MS for removing such a nice tool (vdproj) from the latest versions of visual studio.
I have come to know that I can add my files (and dlls) to distribute in WIX using that tag. It is OK. But in vdproj it was very easy to add all files. I just need to right click in file view, and select 'add project output'. This was enough to add dozen of files that were required for my application. In visual studio 2012, and using WIX 3.7, what options do I have to automatically list all those dlls that are required by my application?
There is no automatic method that could be written that wouldn't require you to remove some items and redirect some items to other folders. In the simple case, you wouldn't need an automatic method anyway.
In your WiX Setup project, add a reference to each project you want to include the output from. In the properties for a reference, set Harvest to True and Project Output Groups as desired.
Because project harvesting doesn't work in some corner cases, it is disabled by default. You must enable it in your project file. (See the references.)
Build and you will have ComponentGroups generated for your harvested projects. The script file is in the obj folder (since it's not a file you want to keep in source control).
For example, for the project ConsoleApplication1, add a ConsoleApplication1.Binaries ComponentGroupRef to a Feature. By default, all such components are placed into INSTALLFOLDER. If you want them elsewhere, you can change the ItemGroup metatdata or one of the properties that affect the HavestProjects target.
Unless you have many project references that change often, there is no need to automate this.
References: WiX.chm
HarvestProjects Target
Using Project References and Variables
I have two use cases: 1) loading a temporary DLL during a custom action and 2) executing a temporary EXE from a custom action. The custom action DLL is unmanaged C++. I cannot figure out how to get this working correctly. Including the DLL is easy enough but LoadLibrary is failing as it cannot find the DLL. I also cannot seem to get the physical path of the extracted DLL in order to specify full path in LoadLibrary. Any help is appreciated. I'm using WIX btw for this work.
If you have included the dll and the exe in the Binary Table of the msi, the files will be physically present in the %Temp% folder of the currently logged in user which gets mapped to SUPPORTDIR property of Windows Installer.
You need to use MsiGetProperty to get the SUPPORTDIR and use that in the LoadLibrary.
One thing to remember - Windows Installer usually extracts files from Binary table to %TEMP%, however - the current work directory is often set to c:\windows\installer.
My suggestion - extract the temporary .dll from Binary table yourself when you need it. This gives you the control of when it's saved to. Just remember that you need write permission to the location, so usually some subdir of %temp% is the best choice.