I'm developing a Windows service in VS2012 and the setup/deployment part has been removed. So I'm not able to create a setup project. I would like to hear what you guys could recommend for a good easy to use the installer. I need to take some inputs, only strings, under the installation of the service. I've been looking at WiX but that seems a bit complex, and I only got 1 or 2 days to make this installer.
So what installer should I use other than Wix?
I've had really bad experiences with InstallShield LE (the one that comes with Visual Studio 2012), especially for Windows Services. The features that you need to install a service (custom actions, etc), don't come with the light version.
What I'm planning to do for the current Windows service I'm working on is to build it with Topshelf, which (amongst other things) means installing your service is as simple as running MyServiceApp.exe install. I'm sure even InstallShield will let you run your app once it's installed, and then your app/Topshelf can install the service component.
If InstallShield doesn't work for you, I've had good results before with NSIS. Simple, powerful, free, decent documentation. It looks a bit clunky.
Here is a list of setup tools which can get you started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_installation_software
If you don't have a lot of time for creating the installer, I recommend using a commercial tool like Advanced Installer or InstallShield. You need a license, but they are focused on usability (do more in less time).
You can do it with InstallShield LE... You can add custom actions "After Register Product" for install and for "After System Changes". These custom actions can run an EXE on the machine.
Make sure you run the command line tools "in system context"
After Register Product run the version of InstallUtil to your version of .NET
eg.
path=C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319
command=InstallUtil.exe "C:\Program Files (x86)\XXX\YYY\ZZZ.exe"
replacing XXX YYY and ZZZ to match your install
After System Changes to delete your service name run
e.g.
sc delete "servicename"
Note you need support for the custom actions within your own service executable (you needed this in earlier VS too).
You can find more information about SC here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/251192
To add an installer for a service, you just need to right-click on the designer for the service and click "Add Installer".
Here's the walkthrough:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zt39148a.aspx
Related
we have our business apps and size is 64 MB. every time add new functionality or change existing one then we rebuild our setup and deliver to client. so this means every time we are delivering 64 MB or more than that to our client.
we have our main win form project and also there many other class library project in our project solution. i am looking for easy way out to deliver only changes to our client.
may be changes could be there in our win form project or could be there in any class library.
so wherever changes made i just only deliver changes through setup and i want just client would install that setup or run any exe file and could see the changes we made in code.
i create setup with VS2005 setup creation option. how suggest me the best option for creating patch like apps which any client just install and get the changes in his apps. give me the best idea to implement in detail. thanks
When using Wix to generate an installer for your project, you can use it to also generate a patch file which will update only changed files.
Visual Studio 2005 setup projects don't really support Patch building and such. It's meant as a rudimentary solution for building installers. Wix, however, is what Microsoft uses internally to build the setup experience for Visual Studio 2012 and other products. There is a very extensive walk-through available here.
Wix does come with a steep learning curve. Would you have been using Visual Studio 2010 or 2012, then you could take advantage of a couple of templates that make it much easier to build a setup for a given type of application. I don't believe these will work with Visual Studio 2005.
This book might also guide you.
I have the requirement as follows to create an installer for a Silverlight application that consumes WCF service and SQL Server as a database.
The goal is to create an all-in-one package that installs the application, the service and the SQL Server database on the server. Although the package should include all three the user should be able to install them separately as well. For ex. Silverlight application need not be installed on the server, and the WCF service not on the client and so on.
I'm right now trying with Wix installer, this is my first time using wix. It looks good so far, but I'm not sure if it complies with all the following requirements.
Requirement:
Customers should be confident that applications will install on Windows Server 2008 R2 without degrading the operating system or other applications.
Installer related requirements
Do not require server to restart during and after Install / uninstall
Uninstall cleanly
Comply with Windows Resource Protection (WRP)
Allow user control of installation location
Comply with Kernel mode component requirements
Install shared components to correct location
Do not overwrite non proprietary files with older Versions
Support User Account Control for installation
Correctly conñgure package identity
Follow Best Practices for creating custom actions
Follow component rules
Install / uninstall
Support command iine installation
Applications using Windows Installer must successfully install in quiet mode via a command line with /qn switch.
I would like to know if Wix is the right tool or is there any other better free tools. Visual Studio setup project doesn't seem to be flexible or may be I'm wrong.
If you want a free tool Wix should be your choice. Its no so easy to use it in the beginning, but it gets the job done. VS setup project is designed for small simple setup packages, you cannot consider it as an option based on the requirements you have.
Advanced Installer recently added dedicated support for Silverlight applications. It also covers your other requirements, including SQL Server databases. The only downside is that it's a commercial tool, so you need to get a license.
But if you want a free tool, WiX allows you to hack pretty much anything into your installer. So if you like it, you should stick with it and start implementing custom actions which cover the requirements which are not supported by Windows Installer.
I have been using InstallShield LE in Visual Studio 2010, but it is heavily limited and sometimes buggy. I looked at paid InstallShield versions, but these also have too many limitations for that price tag.
So I decided to switch to WiX. I have had some experience with it some years ago. It was pretty easy to build a simple installer using SharpDevelop with WiX tools.
Now I am trying to collect solutions and tools for WiX. Basically, I need to get the following functionality (requested by my client):
when I launch the installer, it should check a text file on the server and see if a newer version is available. If it's the case, then the installer should be able to download the updated installer package and launch it (are there any downloader utilities in WiX?)
solving dependencies. Major dependency of my app is .NET 4 (which itself depends on Windows Installer 3). The installer should offer the user to download and install them automatically
logging the installation process, also collecting the log file of the dependencies' installation process. I don't want the user to hunt various .log files in case .NET4 or WindowsInstaller3 installation fails. All the information should be collected in one place and if something fails, I should show the user a custom popup dialog with an option to save the complete install log file and send it to me
installer should be able to detect if there is a newer version of my app already installed, and show a meaningful customized error message before it exits
installer should be able to detect if there is an older version of my app already installed. and offer the user to exit installation or uninstall the previous version and install the new version. BTW, there are no minor component upgrades planned, I prefer to reinstall everything fresh (I guess, this is a major upgrade in the terms of WindowsInstaller). Installshield LE failed on me for this, it just showed an error box with the message about another product, but did not offer to uninstall it
in case of an upgrade, installer should be able to detect if some of application components are in use (running application processes) and show a custom error message and not just some cryptic "Installation failed"
I have read that it may be a bit painful to manage upgrades even if I keep my UpgradeCode intact, because this code is stored in the Windows Registry in a compressed way and also if the user renames the downloaded file, it might get detected as a completely new product by WindowsInstaller ... or maybe this is only the case with WindowsInstaller .msi files and WiX has some trick to avoid this issue?
About update downloading - I need this functionality also in my application itself. I am not sure how to implement it efficiently, so I can reuse the same update downloader code/utility in both WiX installer and in my app.
Is it possible to satisfy all these requirements using currently existing WiX tools, or maybe I'll need to code some components from scratch?
WiX is definitely the way to go in my opinion.
when I launch the installer, it should check a text file on the server and see if a newer version is available. If it's the case,
then the installer should be able to download the updated installer
package and launch it (are there any downloader utilities in WiX?)
In my opinion, this type of functionality is best handled by the application. However you can implement such functionality in a custom bootstrapper. The latest development of WiX includes a bootstrapper engine Burn that allows you to write your own custom bootstrapper on top of it.
solving dependencies. Major dependency of my app is .NET 4 (which itself depends on Windows Installer 3). The installer should offer
the user to download and install them automatically
You can use the standard WiX bootstrapper to install .NET as a prereq. Or if you create your own custom managed bootstrapper application, you can install .NET a prereq to your bootstrapper as in this example
logging the installation process, also collecting the log file of the dependencies' installation process. I don't want the user to
hunt various .log files in case .NET4 or WindowsInstaller3
installation fails. All the information should be collected in one
place and if something fails, I should show the user a custom popup
dialog with an option to save the complete install log file and send
it to me
Using the two bootstrapping methods above, when you launch your msi you can specify parameters for logging. In my own custom managed bootstrapper I created a button to open the log files created during installation.
installer should be able to detect if there is a newer version of my app already installed, and show a meaningful customized error
message before it exits
You can do this using launch conditions
installer should be able to detect if there is an older version of my app already installed. and offer the user to exit installation or
uninstall the previous version and install the new version. BTW,
there are no minor component upgrades planned, I prefer to reinstall
everything fresh (I guess, this is a major upgrade in the terms of
WindowsInstaller). Installshield LE failed on me for this, it just
showed an error box with the message about another product, but did
not offer to uninstall it
In my experience this major upgrades are the least complicated
approach.
in case of an upgrade, installer should be able to detect if some of
application components are in use (running application processes) and
show a custom error message and not just some cryptic "Installation
failed"
I think WiX/Windows Installer are generally good at handling these
scenarios and automatically notifying the user that
files/applications need shutdown without you having to author
anything extra in your installer.
All that said, you may want to look into creating your own custom managed bootstrapper using WiX and Burn. That is not trivial however. The best place to go is to download the source code to the WiX Weekly Releases and checkout the project src\Setup\WixBA. It is the custom BA that they wrote to install WiX. There isn't much documentation out there yet because WiX 3.6 is not released (although it is pretty stable). However you don't have to create your own BA to make a solid WiX installer that can handle upgrades and logging.
i have published my project and exe file has been created....
now i want to make a installer with some other applications...i have
myproject.exe
.netframework 3.5
adobeflashplayer.exe
now i want to make a single installer that should install these application at once...how should i do that
Regarding packaging the .NET Framework 3.5 into your setup project, read Microsoft KB Article 324733. In short, you can't do what you asked for. You can specify .NET as a pre-requisite, and you can detect that the pre-req is missing, but the user must elect to install .NET separately, and must run a separate MSI to install .NET.
About Adobe Flash, I don't know.
"You can't do what you asked for." --
Well, at least not with the deployment model offered by Microsoft inside Visual Studio.
Pay $$$ and get InstallShield (or some such) and, oh, spend A LONG TIME learning it, then its cake !
Generally when I use ClickOnce when I build a VB.NET program but it has a few downsides. I've never really used anything else, so I'm not sure
what my options are.
Downsides to ClickOnce:
Consists of multiple files - Seems easier to distribute one file than manageing a bunch of file and the downloader to download those files.
You have to build it again for CD installations (for when the end user dosn't have internet)
Program does not end up in Program Files - It ends up hidden away in some application catch folder, making it much harder to shortcut to.
Pros to ClickOnce:
It works. Magically. And it's built
into VisualStudio 2008 express.
Makes it easy to upgrade the
application.
Does Windows Installer do these things as well? I know it dosen't have any of the ClickOnce cons, but It would be nice to know if it also has the ClickOnce pros.
Update:
I ended up using Wix 2 (Wix 3 was available but at the time I did the project, no one had a competent tutorial). It was nice because it supported the three things I (eventually) needed. An optional start-up-with-windows shortcut, a start-up-when-the-installer-is-done option, and three paragraphs of text that my boss thinks will keep uses from clicking the wrong option.
Have you seen WiX yet?
http://wix.sourceforge.net/
It builds windows installers using an XML file and has additional libraries to use if you want to fancify your installers and the like. I'll admit the learning curve for me was medium-high in getting things started, but afterwards I was able to build a second installer without any hassles.
It will handle updates and other items if you so desire, and you can apply folder permissions and the like to the installers. It also gives you greater control on where exactly you want to install files and is compatible with all the standardized Windows folder conventions, so you can specify "PROGRAM_DATA" or something to that effect and the installer knows to put it in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data or C:\ProgramData depending on if you're running XP or Vista.
The rumor is that Office 2007 and Visual Studio 2008 used WiX to create their installer, but I haven't been able to verify that anywhere. I do believe is is developed by some Microsoft folks on the inside.
I agree with Joseph, my experience with ClickOnce is its great for the vast majority of projects especially in a corporate environment where it makes build, publish and deployment easy. Implementing the "forced upgrade" to ensure users have the latest version when running is so much easier in ClickOnce, and a main reason for my usage of it.
Issues with ClickOnce: In a corporate environment it has issues with proxy servers and the workarounds are less than ideal. I've had to deploy a few apps in those cases from UNC paths...but you can't do that all the time. Its "sandbox" is great, until you want to find the executable or create a desktop shortcut.
Have not deployed out of 2008 yet so not sure if those issues still exist.
Creating an installer project, with a dependency on your EXE (which in turn depends on whatever it needs) is a fairly straightforward process - but you'll need at least VS Standard Edition for that.
Inside the installer project, you can create custom tasks and dialog steps that allow you to do anything you code up.
What's missing is the auto-upgrade and version-checking magic you get with ClickOnce. You can still build it in, it's just not automatic.
I don't believe there is any easy way to make a Windows Installer project have the ease or upgradability of ClickOnce. I use ClickOnce for all the internal .NET apps I develop (with the exception of Console Apps). I find that in an enterprise environment, the ease of deployment outweighs the lack of flexibility.
ClickOnce can be problematic if you have 3rd party components that need to be installed along with your product. You can skirt this to some extent by creating installers for the components however with ClickOnce deployment you have to create the logic to update said component installers.
I've in a previous life used Wise For Windows Installer to create installation packages. While creating upgrades with it were not automatic like ClickOnce is, they were more precise and less headache filled when it came to other components that needed to be registered/added.