Is it possible to install both WiX 3.0 and 3.5? If I install 3.5 after installing 3.0, it removes the 3.0 files - and if I attempt to install 3.0 after 3.5, it tells me there is a newer version already installed.
I'm in the process of migrating from VS 2008 to VS 2010, so one version (branch) of my application is is using VS 2008 (existing production version), and another one is in VS 2010 (future version). WiX 3.5 is required for VS2010.
What this means is on my build server, at the moment, I cannot build both the current version and the new version, as one will report an error about not finding WiX files:
c:\buildAgent\work\fe55ddb47cebe4fd\MyApp.wixproj(25, 11): error MSB4019: The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\WiX\v3.0\Wix.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.
I'd prefer not to upgrade the current version of my product to WiX 3.5 as 3.5 is still in beta, and as is I had to cherry pick a weekly build to get it to work at all (I'm just hoping by the time my next version is ready, that WiX 3.5 will be stable).
Is there a way to install both side-by-side? Do I just need to copy the 3.0 files into the Msbuild directory?
I ended up:
Installing WiX 3.5.1916 with the .MSI package (later versions failed in strange ways which I didn't put much effort into figuring out)
Copying the following files to the build server:
%programfiles%\Windows Installer XML v3**
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Installer XML\3.0
(SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\ for x64 systems)
%programfiles%\MSBuild\Microsoft\WiX\v3.0**
It builds successfully now, I haven't done much testing with the resulting files though. So it seems it is possible to have 3.0 and 3.5 concurrently, it's just a minor pain to make it work.
The way wix is currently designed you can't have 3.0 and 3.5 both installed on the same machine. They do provide a zip version of wix that enables you to let your build automation self deploy wix onto the build server to get around this limitation. You do lose certain things like visual studio integration though.
Related
I am trying to build Microsoft.AspnetCore.Identity from sources. The instructions are here: https://github.com/dotnet/aspnetcore/blob/master/docs/BuildFromSource.md. I am trying to run their command "restore.cmd" and hitting the following error:
error : Version 3.1.10 2 of the .NET Core SDK requires at least version 16.3.0 of MSBuild. The current available version of MSBuild is 16.0.46
1.62831. Change the .NET Core SDK specified in global.json to an older version that requires the MSBuild version currently available.
The error message's suggestion of changing the .Net Core SDK version seems absurd. Surely the solution is to install MSBuild 16.3.0. But how do I do that?
As an aside which may or may not be relevant, the instructions also have a script for installing the "exact required" version of VS. But it seems to install a new one that goes side-by-side with my existing version. Their "startvs" command then starts the existing one, rather than the new one. It has to be better to add everything needed to the existing installation. But I'm missing how to add MSBuild 16.3.0.
The error message's suggestion of changing the .Net Core SDK version
seems absurd. Surely the solution is to install MSBuild 16.3.0. But
how do I do that?
1) Please make sure that you have run ./eng/scripts/InstallVisualStudio.ps1 to install the required tools.
2) If you have VS2019, try to enable the option Use previews of the .NET Core SDK(require restart) under Tools--> Options-->Environment-->Preview Features.
a) If you have VS2019 at your agent, just update it to the latest version so that you will get the latest version about MSBuild.
b) Download the latest version of Build Tool for VS2019. You can download it under Tools for Visual Studio 2019 from this link. If you have already downloaded it, please update it to the latest version in vs installer. Also, make sure that you have install the workload Net Core build tools. After that, you can build net core projects with it.
3) Then try to run .\restore.cmd in developer command prompt.
I have tried to build a Wix MSI using our build server. I have set the build configuration in the Configuration manager to DEBUG/x86. All the other projects build correctly EXCEPT for the Wix Installer.
Initially there was an error requesting the latest version of WIX was installed on the build server "The WiX Toolset v3.11 (or newer) build tools must be installed to build this project. To download the WiX Toolset, see http://wixtoolset.org/releases/" so I follwed this -
https://subscription.packtpub.com/book/web_development/9781784393212/1/ch01lvl1sec12/compiling-a-wix-installer-on-a-build-machine-using-msbuild
also have used this -
https://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/msbuild/wix_with_team_build.html
Now the build freezes on the Wix project and eventually times oout at 59 minutes. What would be wrong? what needs correctling?
I have tried these suggestions already - https://subscription.packtpub.com/book/web_development/9781784393212/1/ch01lvl1sec12/compiling-a-wix-installer-on-a-build-machine-using-msbuild
also have used this -
https://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/msbuild/wix_with_team_build.html
Expecting it to build, then I can create an MSI file.
.NET 3.5: This might very well be something else, but maybe try to install the .NET Framework 3.5. WiX 3.x has a build-dependency requiring this .NET version.
How-To: Please see this answer for more details: WiX Toolset: Creating a simple WiX project breaks in VS2017: The "CreateProjectReferenceDefineConstants" task was not found
I have installed Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition. Installed it without any specific things selected like C++ development or Windows development etc. After that I have installed Wix through wixtoolset, which downloaded and installed wix tool set components. After that I have installed the Wix ToolSet extension for Visual Studio 2017. Restarted the Visual Studio and trying to create a new project through File -> New -> Project - WiX Toolset -> Setup Project.
It gives the error and does not let me create the project. I am totally new to WiX and have just a little knowledge about Visual Studio.
Initially, I did not select any of the Installation workloads for VS17 and installed it just to make the installation faster.
Through the comments from Azaz, I came to know that NuGet Package Manager is required to install the packages on demand. But since I could not see the NuGet option at all, I tried to install it with Extensions and updates but it did not work. I did a bit of research and found that at least one .Net development workload is required at a time of VS17 installation which will make the NuGet install automatically in VS17.
So I uninstalled the VS17, WiX at all and removed them from the system. Then Installed VS17 with certain workload packages as shown in the below screenshot.
After that I installed WiX and an extension for the same in VS17. i.e. Votive2017.vsix.
I restart the VS17 and now I am able to create project for WiX.
Looks like there is something I missed somewhere in installing which did not let me install required DLLs and GUID feature, which were important for creating project templates.
Sharing the steps I followed in order to fix the same issue that I found with Visual Studio 2019, as I also installed it without any workload. I was also looking at a reduced installation.
The steps I did in order to fix the template error, install the following individual components:
.NET 5.0 Runtime
.Net Core 3.1 Runtime
.NET SDK
C# and Visual Baisc Roslyn compilers
ClickOnce Publishing
Microsoft Visual Studio Installer Projects
Hope it helps someone else. I have to point out that the comments before helped me understand the issue. But, for example, I couldn't even open the NuGet command line.
I am very new to the installer world.
I have successfully made an .msi for my application and it is building with short-cuts and also uninstalls correctly.
My next goal is to package .Net 4.5 with the installer and have it be installed prior to the installation of my application.
I also have a third party application that needs to be installed. It is packaged as an msi.
From what I can gather I need to develop a Bootstraper solution to have these applications install in sequence.
Can anyone provide a guide as to how to implement an installer in such a way? My searches have come up with a bunch of partial implementations with an assumption of the design of a Wix Bootstrapper Project in Visual Studio.
I hope this helps someone. It took me 5 hours to figure it out. Maybe, my bad, but did not find anything about it in the docs or blogs.
So my scenario is: VS 2012, WIX 3.6 with Burn bootsrapper, create a Setup executable in order to check .NET Framework 4.5 and install it by downloading if not installed already. Sounds simple. And it is. Actually very.
Create your MSI installer project (WIX Setup Project), to produce an installer for your application.
Create a WIX Bootstrapper Project for your Setup executable.
Follow the instructions here, to create your Boundle.wxs
Add a reference to the WixNetFxExtension.dll which can be found in the WIX program directory.
Include the following line in your Chain:
<PackageGroupRef Id="NetFx45Redist"/>
Actually the WixNetFx extension contains a working install package definition for the .NET Framework 4.5.
As caveman_dick mentioned, Burn in WiX 3.6 supports this but you may also want to take a look at dotNetInstaller (http://dblock.github.com/dotnetinstaller/). We use it to install .NET 4.0 but I'm sure it works for installing 4.5 as well. It can also install other MSI dependencies very easily.
I have created a setup project with VS2008 for a .NET Windows Forms application using .NET Framework 3.5.
But I want to create an installation with WiX 3.5. Since I have VS2008 installed, I expected I can use the instructions in the help section How To: Install the .NET Framework Using a Bootstrapper. Unfortunately this includes a reference to the directory
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bootstrapper\
that I cannot find on my PC although this should be present if VS2008 is installed. Should I find it somewhere on my PC or do I have to install this manually? Why should this be necessary?
What are other opportunities to automatically install the .NET framework when required?
Edit:
The WiX documentation describes the path for VS2005 on a 32 bit operating system. I found the boostrapper at
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bootstrapper
There are a few related questions to yours, check out WiX: Where can I download the bootstrapper?