I am using clickonce to distribute my VB.net windows application. It has several prerequisites, which are automatically installed by clickonce as soon as the user attempts to download the software. (e.g. DotNet Framework 3.5)
I would really like to have some kind of way of being alerted if any prerequisites fail to install- preferably an email sent to my account.
Can anyone suggest a way to do this?
Unfortunately, ClickOnce is pretty much feature-locked and I fear that you have to look at other products to implement such a feature.
You can have a look a NSIS for example: http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page
Related
Long story short, one of my my employer's clients has an aaS platform that relies on a piece of software that's a ClickOnce app. This particular app is developed by a 3rd party software developer, and licensed to my employer's client company. It also happens to have a large number of prerequisite/dependency applications that need to be installed in order for it to function, but are not deployed as part of the ClickOnce installation. Importantly, because it's developed by a 3rd party and licensed, it's not possible to make any changes to the application itself.
Thus far, actually installing the application on endpoints has been handled by the client company by providing a pre-imaged computer, or when their client wishes to use their own hardware, giving their customer service reps a large zip file containing a bunch of .bat scripts they have to run manually on any computer that's to be used as an endpoint for their service. The batch scripts basically do the job of a bootstrapper and install the prereqs, make necessary system configuration changes and checks, and then call the ClickOnce application installer.
As expected, they don't like this solution, and would like an actual installer, so I've set about creating a bootstrapper with WiX/Burn, but I'm now stuck on how to include the ClickOnce application in my bootstrapper project. I can't seem to find documentation on this online, prompting the question:
Can I bundle a ClickOnce application into a WiX bootstrapper? How?
If it makes a difference, the ClickOnce application is published from one of the client company's servers, so I have full access to both the ClickOnce manifest and all the .deploy files.
You can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear. I think the best you can do is make a dependency installer for a certain version of the ClickOnce installer. No one should expect that a future version of the application would have the same dependencies.
(By that time, though, maybe they'll fix their ClickOnce installer by including dependencies. Or, abandon dependencies that they are having trouble putting into ClickOnce, say those needed for obsolete versions of Windows.)
Once dependencies are installed, you can have the bootstrapper launch the application, which would install or update it. (Logically, this follows the Chain.)
<Variable Name="LaunchTarget" Value="http://example.com/path/product.application"/>
Backing up a bit, you could create an MsiPackage with all of the ClickOnce files, and use a "file://" URI for the LaunchTarget. This would require you to rebuild and redeploy each new version (defeating the nature of ClickOnce), but would isolate you from untested application updates.
I work on WIX installer, I want the auto-update system that ClickOnce provide. I upload the new version on server and the end client can check online to see if there is a newer version available.
Can WIX do this?
Thanks.
You need to write something yourself to check for updates and download the new installer. Once you have the new installer, WiX can handle upgrading the version installed on the end user machine. Typically people have a secondary executable embedded within the main program which is responsible for launching the downloaded installer, so that the main program can close during the update process.
In the past, I've handled checking for and downloading updates with NAppUpdate, which is easily extensible for however you want it to behave. I'm sure there are plenty of other open source alternatives to handle this as well.
Wix does not have the capability to do so.
You can read the diffrences between ClickOnce and Wix (Windows installer) from:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms973805.aspx
I think you can wrap MSI in ClickOnce and use both.
Also you have Squirrel (Like clickonce) that is based on PowerShell but may not work on all target machines.
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
does vb.net have a different way to build an application without using clickonce?
If your application doesn't need an installer then you don't need to use ClickOnce at all. Just do a build in Visual Studio to produce your exe and off you go. There are actually quite a few single-file applications on the internet that are done this way.
If you do need a proper installer, I still wouldn't normally suggest ClickOnce. ClickOnce was designed to allow a user to literally click a button in a web browser just "once" to install your product into a secure-but-limited sandbox. The sandbox where the application lives will then have limited permissions to the file system and such. It's pretty cool in theory. But in practice the limitations involved can become a pain for any but the most basic of applications.
For a powerful installer system for Windows, I'd suggest NSIS. It's free, open source, and scriptable. I've used it to build the installer for a couple of VB.NET software applications. One of them has been downloaded & installed by thousands of users. I'm also the main point of contact for technical support and I haven't heard a single report of a problem with the installer itself.
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that I've tried others such as InstallShield and Wise and even ClickOnce (that was short-lived). But nothing could compare to the speed, power, reliability, and lightweight-edness of NSIS.
Command line:
vbc /out:MyProg.exe MyFile.vb
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.