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
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Asking similar question because no one answered previous question asked
I have a solution with a class library project, a WPF project (start up project) and a Windows Service project. I would like to create one installer so that when the user installs the application then both WPF (UI) and Windows service gets installed.
Most of the resources I found online only talk about one or another but not both. For example this:.
I checked some question on stackoverflow but either they are not answered by any one or vague answers like this question or this one.
Any suggestion how to achieve this?
I'm not an expert on various installer solutions, but yes, this can be done. I know because my project does it.
We've historically used InstallShield, but we are actively moving to InstallAware for reasons unrelated to this discussion. Frankly, I suspect any installer solution (e.g., InstallShield, InstallAware, Wix, etc.) could be used to do this providing that it has the means to execute a batch script as part of the install process (more on this in a moment). In fact, while we are building our new installer using InstallAware, we are temporarily delivering our WPF-based application and Windows Service using a WinZip self-extracting executable. The WinZip self-extractor puts the WPF application in the C:\Program Files\<application>\<version> folder, puts the Windows Service in the C:\Program Files\<application>\Common folder, and then installs and starts the Windows Service.
The trick to all of this, of course, is getting the Windows Service installed. Initially, we used the InstallUtil.exe utility to do this, but we had to err on the side of caution and deliver it with our installer because we couldn't verify whether or not we could depend on the utility being available on the target system. At some point along the way, I read this answer by #Marc Gravell. This provided the springboard to my answer here, which provides detailed instructions for having your Windows Service install itself from the command line without the need for InstallUtil.exe.
So as a set of instructions...
Update your Windows Service based on the details here.
Create a .bat file with the following commands:
cd <PathToWindowsServiceInstallationFolder>
<YourWindowsService>.exe -install
Build the installer for your WPF Service and Windows Service. Note that this should focus on deploying the files to their correct locations. You'll need to include the .bat file as part of the installer. If your installer solution allows you to copy files to a temporary folder that gets deleted at the end of the installation process, copy the .bat file to that location since you won't need it after the installer is finished.
Finally, execute the .bat file from your installer during installation. This will install the Windows Service.
It's really not that complicated all things considered.
The one thing to be aware of is that your users should plan on running the installer as an administrator. Since installing the Windows Service updates the registry, users without administrative privileges might run into problems when trying to install your product.
HTH
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."
What I Have Done:
I created a Visual Studio Setup Project that creates the installer for my WPF application. This installer creates the MSI I use to install the application.
I created a Primary Output with my primary project and created a shortcuts to this.
The application installs successfully.
Problem:
When I click the shortcut that was created on the desktop I get the following screen before the application loads and starts:
Header: [Application Name]
Message: Please wait while Windows configures [Application Name]
Loading Bar Header:
Gathering required information...
(Followed by a progress bar and a cancel button)
This takes up unnecessary time.
The application starts after this finishes and continues as intended.
How can I prevent this from happening, what reasons could there be for this to happen?
PS: when I open the application from the exe in the program files this does not happen.
This nearly always happens because people are unaware of the fact that if they install a file (or registry entry) and then delete it later a repair will be triggered by using an advertised shortcut. There are other entry points into repair, but shortcuts are the obvious one. Attempts to defeat repair are often pointless because there are other things that can prompt a repair of a changed product. such as upgrades, patches, and the user right-clicking the MSI to repair, or doing repair from Programs and Features.
Another cause is that the setup installs an item (such as a file or registry entry) into a user profile location (such as User's data) in an Everyone install. The is installed for the installing user, but not for another user so repair will install it. However you'd see this just once per new user.
There have also been VS setup project bugs that can cause this issue.
The documented way to prevent repair for files you want to remove after install is to null the Component Id for the file, something VS setups don't support so you need to do it with something like Orca or post-build MSI script. See ComponentId here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa368007(v=vs.85).aspx
Note that the Windows Installer team recommends the MSI source be available anyway for a number of reasons, rule 31:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windows_installer_team/archive/2006/05/24/605835.aspx
Visual Studio Setup Project authors advertised shortcuts which is one of the mechanisms that MSI uses to determine if a repair is needed. It is detecting it is needed and attempting to do so but failing resulting in an infinite repair loop. Please read:
Windows Installer launches unexpectedly, for no obvious reason
This will help you identify which component is causing a problem. Unfortunately, VS Setup Projects are quiet limited and it's going to be difficult to fix this problem. I really would recommend a better toolset such as WiX, Advanced Installer or InstallShield.
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 need to create a simple installer of sorts for a different application. That other application already has it's own simplistic installer, and I don't want to meddle with it.
The reason for my own installer is to allow the user to install SQL Express if (s)he so chooses, and also to pre-install any other basic requirements for such a procedure.
At the moment, here's where I'm at:
I've created a single Windows form application, with big buttons (this is for a user which likely won't be very good with computers) to install SQL Server Express (using silent install with a predefined set of arguments) or the actual application, along with some helpful text to let the user know what's going on. Something along the lines of Visual Studio autorun window.
I've also added the standard set of pre-requirements to the application (.NET, Windows Installer).
Everything works OK if I run the app by using the executable. HOWEVER, if I publish it to create a ClickOnce application (so the pre-requisites are installed when needed) and run it, it stops running other installers.
EDIT: Apparently the problem with not being able to run other application from a ClickOnce application is only on my end, and probably deserves a new question, not necessarily here on StackOverflow (perhaps on MSDN forums?).
In your program before launching the installer you can check if .NET is installed. Its pretty easy to check if a particular s/w or a version of s/w is installed. Write a program that will check HKEY/LocalMachine/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Uninstall and in that there will be list of programs that have been installed on that machine. If you find then go ahead with your install else suggest user that he needs to install pre req.
When you create a setup project you can right click on the setup project, go to properties, and click on pre requisites. In that you can mention which version of .NET framework is needed and then give the location of the framework. In this link look for Huggy Bears response eggheadcafe.com/community/aspnet/2/10131905/setup-project.aspx
I've settled for a "Click Once" application. It can install all required .NET components needed for it to run, thus becoming an "sure-to-run-non-native-C++-code-splash-screen".
Granted, there ARE issues with Click Once, but this is far better than nothing. It's also better than running C++ or unmanaged code applications. ;)