I have followed this blog for deploying my WPF application. I used windows installer technology classic setup project template in Visual Studio 2015.
I am using windows installer instead of ClickOnce deployment because I need to choose my own installation path and custom wizard UI.
But there is not information regarding how to update my application when I use windows installer to deploy my application. How can I update my app after once it was installed in clients machine? Are there different possible ways to achieve this?
It would be helpful if anyone can provide the resources or suggest any practical approaches that I can use to update my WPF app.
In Visual Studio setups you use the RemovePreviousVersions project property. This should help:
https://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/visual-studio/updates-to-setup-projects/
Basically just increment the setup project version, accept the changes, keep UpgradeCode the same, set RemovePreviousVersions to true.
The project's properties window is shown when you select the setup project in Solution Explorer and use F4, or View=>Properties Window, NOT property pages.
You'll also need to increment the file versions of files you wish to be updated.
If you want to do it silently, use the msiexec command line options that include /q, such as msiexec /I [path to your new msi] /q
However if your install requires elevation it will fail because silent really means silent, so the usual request for elevation will not be shown.
Related
I am struggling with a issue of making one installer dependent upon other.Suppose i have a setup project Through which, i use to make MSI(or setup) of my c# application for deployment on windows machine. Now suppose i have another project whose MSI(or setup) is generated by another setup project.
Now what i want to make is that when my first setup is run than it will first check for whether second MSI(or setup) is installed or not. If its not installed on target machine then it first set up will run and install second setup, once second set up is properly installed then installer of first continues and completes the its installation.
I can't figure it out how can i check whether second setup has installed or not. i.e how to make second installer dependent upon first installer. I am using visual studio 2013 and the project which i am deploying is c# application
First time i am dealing with making setups for application deployment so may be my way of asking may not be good. Thankyou!
In general that is not possible by means of MSI only since you can't run two MSI installers at the same time. You'll need to use some external solution: a self-made script, InstallShield wrapper etc. The only thing you can do within the MSI is to check that a prerequisite application is installed and if it's not - abort the installation.
Yes, you need to use a packaging tool that either offer out of the box support or you will have to write your own code for this.
You have quite few options here:
-InstallShield
-AdvancedInstaller
-Wix
What you are trying to achieve is known as prerequisite or runtimes required by your application.
As J.Tribbiani mentioned in his answer the solution you need is to use a professional tool like Advanced Installer or the others, to configure your setup as a prerequisite. This is the standard procedure for your requirement.
Here is an example tutorial of how to do it with Advanced Installer:
prerequisite configuration
Or a video of configuring an optional prerequisite, i.e. which the users could choose to skip (let's say if they have an equivalent alternative or want to manually install the prerequisite)
Disclaimer: I work on the team building Advanced Installer
I'm using the Visual Studio Installer Projects extension to build the MSI-installer for my application. However, my application is meant to be running at all times, and if it's open when the user is installing a new version of my software, the open files are not overwritten, and very little to nothing is actually updated (although there are no installer-errors).
I've found that using the installer project's "Custom Actions" to run a script that closes the application doesn't help, as none of the actions are called before the files are replaced.
Is there a good way to make sure the open/locked files gets terminated before the files are supposed to be overwritten?
We had this problem, and the solution we came up with was to create two apps; the user app and an updater app. The MSI installs both. Each app checks if the other needs updating and, if it does, closes the other app, downloads the other app's updater, runs it, then relaunches the other app. Additionally, each app monitors if the other app is running and, if it isn't, launches it.
It would be useful to know more about your application and how you are doing the upgrade because:
You will normally see a FilesInUse dialog saying that files are in use, prompting the user to shut them down, but not if the install is silent.
Visual Studio setups have no built-in support for shutting down and restarting services, so if your app is a service you'll need extra work.
Files that actually do need to be replaced will prompt the user for a reboot (if they are not previously shut down) in order to replace them at reboot time.
So if you're not seeing reboot requests or FilesInUse dialogs in a UI install then something else is going on. So you need to be sure that:
a. You are really doing an upgrade where the version of the setup project has been incremented, the UpgradeCode is the same (and the ProductCode changes when you increment the setup project's version). Your symptoms could be the result of the upgrade not working and you're seeing just a repair.
b. The definition of "new version" is that you have an upgrade as in a., AND, the file versions of the binaries have been incremented. The default overwrite rules for installs require incremented file versions, so if they haven't been incremented you'll see no updates, and Windows will not attempt to show FilesInUse dialogs or reboot because there are no files that need replacing.
This isn't a solution to the problem, but rather another solution; the one requiring the least work in the end.
I ended up not using 'Visual Studio Installer Projects' for my installer. Instead I looked to Advanced Installer, which just works with no issues. Things like this is taken into account, and custom actions allow for more options.
If your project is open source, you can write to them about a free open source "professional" license, equal to their "professional" plan, which is normally $399 (onetime purchase).
REBOOT: How are you installing this MSI? What command line? If you set REBOOT=ReallySuppress on the command line, you will not be prompted for a reboot even if one is required to complete the installation of the product.
msiexec.exe /i MySetup.msi /QN REBOOT=ReallySuppress
If you are using a distribution system I suppose suppressing reboot prompts could be standard behavior. Then your product files should be put in place after a reboot (PendingFileRenameOperations or perhaps some newer mechanism).
It is also possible that Visual Studio Installer Projects do something strange that I am not aware of.
Log: I would try to create a good log file for the install, to determine what is going on:
msiexec.exe /i C:\Path\Your.msi /L*v C:\Your.log
Log All MSIs: Personally I like to enable logging for all MSI installations - as described in the "Globally for all setups on a machine" section in the above link.
Interpreting an MSI log: interpreting a log file can be challenging sometimes. Here is an answer with some links to help with this.
Reboot Manager: Reboot management is a very complex topic, and Windows features functionality - in the form of the restart manager feature - to try to minimize the need for reboots, by instead shutting down and restarting applications as part of an installation in an "auto-magical" fashion (application listens for messages and shuts itself down gracefully when told to, and the system may restart the application after the install - if configured to do so).
Updating your application to comply with the restart manager is the only real fix for such problems that you see, in my opinon.
The section "Restart Manager" in this question tries to summarize how to implement such support (maybe just read the yellow section a bit down the page).
The Advanced Installer guys have a very nice, technical article about this:
How do I add support for Windows Restart Manager to my application? Also linked to in the link directly above - still worth a direct link here I think.
According to below link
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/0b40b367-3341-43d8-b82e-1ace546969f8/how-can-installation-stop-and-restart-existing-service-?forum=winformssetup
"There is no good support in VS installs to stop and start services. During install, the issue is that custom actions run after everything is installed so it's too late to stop a service that you are upgrading or replacing. Yes, they have names like "BeforeInstall" but they really are not before the install."
I'm trying to create an installer for my application (win form) by visual studio, creating a new project type setup, and am having great difficulty in doing so, for example:
1 When I create the installer and run it installs, but there is the option to uninstall? and I can not install the same application because it already exists on the machine.
2 In dialog window, I see you have the options to create multiple screens and add textbox for example, but where do I set the events of that textbox?
3 º This application works with sqlserver, and I can install it on the machine by the installer, but as I set him to work with my application linq, since I would have to modify the connection string on each machine that I will install the application.
I've researched a lot about these issues and I find no documentation that can teach me how to do this, if anyone knows some please show me,
I appreciate those who can help me, and sorry my english.
I answer your first question at this time due to the lack of time:
In VS, right click the setup project. You have 2 options: Install and Uninstall.
1.) You need to uninstall the program through your operating system. Go to the Control Panel, Programs and uninstall it. Then you can try installing the application.
2.) In design view you can double click the textbox. You will be taken to the method that handles the “TextChanged” event. Write your code there.
3.) If you are installing on a server you need to create a Web Setup project instead of a Setup project. The latter installs files into the file system of a target computer; whereas, the former installs into the virtual directory of a Web server.
I have a setup & deployment project which includes a large C# project that i have created.
I also have some prerequisites that i bootstrapped to the exe, although the MSI file is, as usual, just the project itself.
I would like to create a complete unattended install, not just removing the User interface forms via the UI tab in the Setup project, but to install completely unattended.
In other words the end user will click on the msi and the installation will run by itself (maybe one form for showing progress...)
I read quite a bit about the issue but haven't found anything that suits my needs. I read about IExpress but I havent used it, I also read about commands that you can give the msi, but I would have to insert them into the EXE which is a bit of a problem...
Looking for help on the problem.
Thx in advance
I am currently adding a deployment project to my C# solution which
installs a windows service and I have been trying to find a property
that will make the installer prompt the user to reboot the system once
installation has completed. I would prefer to simply set a property
rather than create a small application that I run at the end of the
install.
if there is any code to restart then where i'll use this code
in installer class or elsewhere?
If you use a MSI-based installer (which would be the case if you're using a VS setup project), setting REBOOT=Force should do the trick.
Under normal circumstances, though, the installer will itself detect if a reboot is needed: if you're not currently getting a reboot prompt, that's a good indication your service should work just fine without that reboot.
You may be able to extend your setup logic to start the service after installing it (and also to launch any auto-start GUI components if required). That's much friendlier than forcing a reboot, and you'll do your bit to help Windows get rid of its "you moved your mouse, please reboot" image problem...
Edit (December 2011) #IdentityCrisisUK: see HOW TO: Control System Restarts in a Setup Project That You Created by Using Visual Studio .NET for the exact steps involved in setting the REBOOT variable. Use of Orca is required -- not sure why that has "already been ruled out", as it's a trivial postbuild step...
Use the REBOOT Property of WIX to restart prompt in the Product.wxs file of your Setup. Syntax is :-
<Property Id="REBOOT" Value="Force"></Property>