I have a WinRT app built with VS2013 using C#. It uses SQLite so it needs the sqlite3.dll included in the project to be in the output directory. I included that DLL in my project and set it to always copy to the output directory. The problem is VS2013 copies it to the Debug directory, but not the AppX directory underneath Debug, which appears to be the WinRT output directory. Because of the the app fails because it can't find sqlite3.dll, which is up in the parent Debug directory instead of the AppX directory.
For now I'm just hand-copying the DLL into the AppX directory. What's the best way to fix this problem so that the DLL is copied to the correct directory?
In your project's Properties window choose Build Events tab. On Post-build window include similar string (please, mind to change the path to sqlite3.dll):
xcopy /Y $(ProjectDir)3DParties\sqlite3\$(PlatformName)\sqlite3.dll $(TargetDir)AppX\
Or even better option. This page https://www.sqlite.org/download.html contains section named "Precompiled Binaries for Windows Runtime" where you can download VSIX package. When you install this package into your system, you can simply reference sqlite3.dll for all target platforms (ARM, x86, x64) including all necessities automatically like this: Add Reference -> Windows 8.1 -> Extensions -> SQLite for Windows Runtime (Windows 8.1)
I can't be sure this is the "right" solution, but I set the file's property to Content/Copy-if-newer.
THEN what I've found is that if the AppX directory is already there, VS doesn't update it, just as you describe above, BUT if you delete the Appx directory then VS will create it from scratch and add the necessary files.
Not as good as having everything automated, but beats hand-copying.
Related
I have install some asp.net core mvc dlls (Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Abstraction.dll). I want to decompile it and see the source code.
The dll is added to my project>Dependencies>Nuget.
However, I am not sure where exactly the dll in in my system.
Is there a quick way to just launch the added dll in ILSypy and see the codes or at least the object inheritance tree?
Thanks.
ASP.NET Core is open source, so as Hans wrote as a comment to your question, you can look directly at the source, you don't need to decompile.
But for future reference, NuGet dlls are extracted to one of two places. Older projects still using packages.config, the dlls are typically extracted to a folder named packages as a sub-folder of where the .sln file is.
Packages using PackageReference, the packages are extracted to your account's global packages folder, which by default is %userprofile%\.nuget\packages on Windows and ~/.nuget/packages on Linux and Mac. You can also look at your project's obj\project.assets.json file to find the paths to everything referenced.
All paths can be modified with nuget.config settings (or even msbuild properties for projects using PackageReference). But if this is the case, either you, or your team mate would probably know, so the default locations for the folders I listed above should be correct.
I am using bPAC SDK provided by Brother for their label printer. I downloaded their SDK, took a bpac.dll file and put it inside my projects folder then referenced it. Everything works fine until I deploy my app to IIS server because, as it turns out, that bpac.dll is referencing another .dll in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Brother folder and IIS does not have required permissions to access that file. This is VERY strange, and strange is that the bpac.dll in my Visual Studio is marked as Interop, whatever it means. How to solve this? How impot all the .dlls to my project so it doesn't need to access files in system folders?
I've created my first Office Add-in using Visual Studio. It targets the 4.0 .Net framework and was created using the new VS 2012. I need to distribute/install this project on various 32-bit XP and 64-bit Windows 7 computers around the office. So I configured the project to be installed on XP (which was my first speed bump because I didn't realize VS 2012 needed an update in order to make a solution that was XP compatible). Now that I have a valid win32 application, I am getting another error:
The following error occurred attempting to install 'C:\filepath...\Import Contacts.vsto':
"No application is associated with the specified file for this operation."
After doing some digging, I think I need to install the Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime on the client computer. To do this, I would like to use the prerequisites properties for the project. So I read up on creating custom prerequisites using some noteworthy sites (e.g, Creating Bootstrapper Packages, Application Deployment Prerequisites, Adding Custom Prerequisites, and Creating a Bootstrapper package for Office 2013 in Visual Studio 2012). I created the files according to that last URL (even though I'm not sure it pertains to the package I need just yet), but it is not appearing in the dialog box under Project > Properties > Publish > Prerequisites
If you read the article, it says the VS prerequisites dialog box should automatically update once I restart VS 2012, which I did but to no avail. I know I'll need to use this feature again in the future, so I would really like to know what I'm doing wrong and fix this. Please help! And I promise to quickly give the ACCEPT to whoever helps me fix this problem! Thank you in advance.
I didn't have any problems following the directions given in the web page and got the bootstrapper added to the Prerequisites dialog. However, there are plenty of possible ways to get it wrong. Some possibilities:
Triple-check the folder you added these files to. Be sure that you picked Program Files (x86) on a 64-bit version of Windows and not Program Files. And be sure that you now see the added VSTOR40 folder along with the other existing bootstrapper folders, like ReportViewer and VBPowerPacks.
You do not have write permission to this folder, UAC prevents copying files there. Be sure that you managed to copy them from, say, an elevated command prompt. Right-click the Command Prompt shortcut and click "Run as Administrator".
If you created the .xml files with Notepad then make sure you didn't accidentally saved them with the .txt extension. If necessary, put Explorer in "programmer mode" so you can see the filename extensions. Control Panel + Folder Options, View tab, untick the "Hide extensions for known file types" checkbox. If you now see product.xml.txt then rename the file to product.xml, same for package.xml.txt
If you created the .xml files with Notepad then be sure to save the file in UTF-8 encoding. File + Save As, Encoding combobox.
For all those who still may face similar issue I think that I found the cause of this issue. It seems that copying folder with custom bootstrapper package (and all necessary files in it) does not "refreshes" the list of available packages. Only when i went through this walkthrough and manually created folder in %Programfiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bootstrapper\Packages\ for sample package from this walkthrough my package has shown
Is it possible to create a VB.Net application which users can just run without installing it first.
If not, is it possible in another .Net language.
If not, how IS it possible :)
PS: The application only has to run under Windows (>= XP).
If they have the .NET Framework installed (the version of it that you developed it), they only need the .exe. You can find the .exe file in the bin directory of your projects folder in your Visual Studio workspace.
If they do not have the framework installed, you'll need to produce an installation for them. It's extremely easy with Visual Studio by just creating a setup project in the same solution as your code.
As long as the user has the .net runtime installed, and your exe has any needed resources in the same folder (dll's, images, ect) theres no problem with that.
If you mean without installing the .net framework though, that won't be possible.
just build the program, and go into the (assuming the project name is app1) app1/app1/bin/debug/ dir. there should be a file there called app1.exe. this file is the compiled .exe from you project. any other computer will be able to run this without doing any installation (provided they have the .NET framework installed (it comes standard on any computer with an os > WinXP))
EDIT: If you were building with debug configuration, it would be app1/app1/bin/debug/, but if you were building with release configuration (which would probably be a better idea if you are distributing) the path would be app1/app1/bin/release/
If you mean running it without the .NET Framework, it used to be possible, but apparently the company's website is no longer in English so I have no idea what's happened to it.
EDIT: If you were building with debug configuration, it would be
app1/app1/bin/debug/, but if you were building with release
configuration (which would probably be a better idea if you are
distributing) the path would be app1/app1/bin/release/
I am developer and have no administration rights to live(production) network.
I had to find away to deploy an app without installation... and my app is self updating this cause other problems too....
The production network Computer check/monitors the file versions etc, so updating in the program files can not be done, where a MSI has been used for deployment.
Using this above I am able to copy and Run the App from the User Profile (where the user has full rights).
lets understand how program runs-
an .exe needs some function which are not inside the .exe, such as , for example substring() function. these predefined function resides in some .dll libraries.
when .exe is executed by user, .exe first finds the .dll and then the function inside that particular .dll.
.exe first looks within the current folder for that .dll
if not found then it searches that in PATHs. (PATH is Environment variable which value is a list of folders such as System32 etc.)
an .exe usually needs only 3 things - .exe itself, .dll which predefined function it is using, and some ActiveX controls(.ocx). apart from these 3, .exe only uses resources (such as icons etc).
lets focus on these 3(.exe, .dll, .ocx)
first you need to check what .dlls your .exe is using. you can easiely do this by using a dependency walker.
then make sure all these .dlls (that dependency walker is showing,or in other words- all these dlls whose functions your .exe needs) are either in current folder(in which your .exe resides) or in the PATHs.
if this step is done then your .exe has high chances to run whithout "installing".
the only problem is that some .dll and all of .ocx, needs to be registered first(means they have to have some kind of registry entry). they are not ready to use just by copying and pasting in current folder or PATHs.
but you can register these .dlls and .ocx's by using regsvr32 (with command line).
after that your .exe should not face any problem to run successfully.
hope you got the main concept.
Background:
I always try to ensure the following tenet in my projects:
After a fresh checkout a developer should be able to do all project related tasks with solely the contents of the combined folders.
Obviously, this isn't always possible (e.g. Visual Studio for Windows development). However, I really dislike having to install any third-party libraries or tools that are specific a project like log4net, NHibernate, NUnit, etc. There are number of reasons for this including:
For a given development machine, you may work on several different projects, all which leverage different versions of the same third-party library or tool.
Minimizing the environment setup requirements makes setting up new developers or machines much easier
Facilitates easier maintenance of automated builds
Assumptions/Contraints
I am currently using WiX 3 beta, but if there is way for either 2.0 or 3.0 please respond
I am using Visual Studio 2005
The IDE syntax highlighting is not a requirement.
Question:
Is it possible to avoid local installation of the WiX toolset and use flat files instead? If so, please explain how.
See Also:
First, build your WiX installer:
Create a new WiX Installer Project in Visual Studio 2005.
Build your WiX XML accordingly.
Now, to integrate the WiX toolkit into your source tree:
Copy c:\Program Files\Windows Installer XML v3\bin to a sub-directory in your source tree. I used WiX\bin relative to my .wixproj file.
Copy c:\Program Files\MSBuild\WiX\v3.0\ to a subdirectory in your source tree. I used WiX\v3.0 relative to my .wixproj file.
Either add the following code or replace the line that follows:
<WixTargetsPath Condition=" '$(WixTargetsPath)' == ''>$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\WiX\v3.0\Wix.targets</WixTargetsPath>
With the following lines:
<WixToolPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\WiX\bin\</WixToolPath>
<WixTasksPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\WiX\v3.0\WixTasks.dll</WixTasksPath>
<WixTargetsPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\WiX\v3.0\Wix.targets</WixTargetsPath>
As you can see, the WixToolPath, WixTasksPath and WixTargetsPath directives reflect the location of the folders I've instructed you to copy.
Rename your .wixproj to .csproj. This ensures that Visual Studio does not get confused by the .wixproj file but because the .wixproj is a valid MSBuild project, Visual Studio will be able to work with it.
Using this method, the WiX directory as described is about 9MB large.
I know with WiX 2, you can just download the executable files and the dll's to whatever directory your project is in. Then you create a .bat file to run candle.exe and light.exe with the parameters you need to build your installer.
That way, all your projects can have their own version of WiX with a disk drive hit of only about 4 megs each.
I'm not positive, but I think you can do the same with WiX 3.