setup and deployment project template is missing in my installtion is there any alternate for that are please let me know the download link from msdn...
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An Alternative would be the NSIS Installer.
P.s.: Yes, I've read his question...
Related
I have a folder containing an exe file and a bunch of other files and a couple other folders. I want to be able to either:
A) Package this all into an installer
or
B) Package the exe and the other files into one singular exe file.
From what I've read, I'm not sure how I'd accomplish either of these with WIX, and I'm 99% sure it's not possible with WIX. Before I dismiss the possibility, I'd like to ask experienced people if I'm right or wrong.
If I can't use WIX, Is there a better alternative?
Thanks for all help.
WiX / Burn: WiX / Burn can indeed make MSI installers or setup.exe wrappers, but it is not trivial to use the toolkit for inexperienced people, and if you have never made a setup before there will be a learning curve. WiX quick start tips.
Burn: Burn is the WiX toolkit's bootstrapper / downloader / chainger tool which allows multiple MSI or setup.exe files to be run in sequence. It allows the creation of a setup.exe which wraps all installer components. Not trivial to learn and use.
Commercial Tools: Quick descriptions of commercial tools Advanced Installer, InstallShield, PACE Suite and some other tools can be found here: Brief descriptions of deployment tools.
And a more elaborate presentation: How to create windows installer.
WIX is highly configurable, and therefore requires some overhead to learn, but it is also very well documented, and gives pretty direct access to windows API's, which are also very well documented.
Packing Existing Files
It is 100% possible to package your files + dependencies into an installer with WIX.
There is a tutorial
Building and Packaging
There is also integration with Visual studio, allowing you to build and run WIX as part of your build.
If you are not using visual studio, that is fine, you can package things with WIX directly, here is
Another tutorial
GUI Installer Creators
If you are completely against the idea of creating your own WIX files and learning the tool set, Advanced installer is a pretty vanilla alternative with a nice GUI
If you really are against making any kind of installer, you can also zip everything up and distribute it that way, can possibly automate this using python.
I have an existing exe file which I would love to have launched from a new installer using the OpenCandy platform.
See here: http://www.opencandy.com/developers/signup/ for OC's integration options. Maybe it could be in the form of a downloader? Or maybe it could just be a fairly empty installer that has OC's api integrated and then will open an embedded exe (all I have is the exe).
Thanks.
You can download our SDK at http://media.opencandy.com/sdk/OpenCandyPublisherKit.zip, which includes instructions for integrating OpenCandy. If you have any questions, there's also a contact address in there.Basically you create an installer (like NSIS or Inno) to install your app/exe and integrate OpenCandy into it.
Be well and good luck integrating!
Dr. Apps
Software Community Guru
OpenCandy
I'm building 2 different MSI with Visual Studio Setup Project. One for x86 and x64. But i couldn't find a way to combine both into one project so that the bootstrapper is installing the correct platform version.
Is there a way to do so in VS Setup Project or are are there any free 3rd party tools i can use? I found dotnetinstaller, but i'm not sure if that is what i'm looking for.
You can use WiX bootstraper: More info can be found here: http://www.wixwiki.com/
An example how to build both 32 and 64 bit MSIs you will find here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2007/08/09/4317654.aspx
You could write a native app and have it check if the system is x86 or x64 then have it write the correct installer to a temp directory and run it. I wrote a blog post that could probably get you started at http://blog.foldertrack.com/?p=45
I want to create a windows installer package using visual studio. It is my understanding that there was a simple way to do this in vb6, you could add an installer like you can add a new form.
How can I do this in vb.net? I downloaded and installed the Windows SDK from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c17ba869-9671-4330-a63e-1fd44e0e2505&displaylang=en because it said somewhere that it could create installer packages and had tools to do so for .net, but no such luck.
I would prefer not to use NSIS or Inno Setup for this.
Is there any way to get the same functionality that you could have in vb6 with the installer packages?
Thanks, I feel I am missing an important step here...
EDIT: I am using visual basic 2008 express, not professional. I dont have "Setup and deployment" or anything like that under my template options.
You could create a .msi installer. Have a look at this question/answer for some more details. How can I create an MSI setup?
Edit: Others have mentioned WiX, so here's a link to a tutorial showing how to use it
There is a setup & deployment project type under other when you go to create a new project in VS Standard edition and higher. If you have express it's not available.
Here's some info on Setup & Deployment projects:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/wx3b589t.aspx
Tutorial:
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/vishnuprasad2005/SetupProjects12022005022406AM/SetupProjects.aspx
File -> New Project -> Other Project Types -> Setup and Deployment
Will allow you to add a setup project to any Visual Studio solution.
In Visual Studio.,Net you would create a Setup Project (or Setup Project Wisard) to create an installer.
Tutorial Here: http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/showtopic58021.htm
Because the express version doesn't include the Setup and Deployment project type, you'll probably find it easier to use a third party tool such as www.advancedinstaller.com - the free version is probably sufficient for your needs.
we are looking to automate an MSI generation for a product we are developing. Currently we have MSBuild building out the source to a network location, this is fine for testing but when it comes to releasing the software we will need to wrap it in an MSI.
The software is all .Net bar 1 COM component that will need registered on each machine it gets installed to.
What I was wondering was how to integrate Wix with MSBuild so that a new wix script will get generated along with an MSI that is able to handle fresh and upgrade installs.
Any help with this is very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Brendan
Sure, there are tasks in MS Build that can do all you need to build an MSI from WiX. Can you integrate this on a build / integration server?
Newer builds of Wix actually include a file called "wix.targets", which should get you started.
Also check out these fine articles on the topic:
Building with Wix.Targets (by Heath Stewart)
Wix Target for MSBuild (by Willem Meints)
Automate Releases With MSBuild And Windows Installer XML (by Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi) (Web archive link for archived msdn magazine)
They cover the topic in much more detail and are extremely helpful to get started.
You should download and install Votive. This will create a Visual Studio project file which you can use with MSBuild to create a WiX-based MSI.
There is also a topic in the WiX manual about how to integrate with MSBuild called Using WiX with MSBuild.