The Visual Basic Team : Mary Lee

How do I deploy an application and its prerequisites? (Mary Lee)

VBTeam — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:42:53 GMT

Let me count the ways: xcopy, ClickOnce, Windows Installer (.msi), Windows Installer XML, Group Policy, Active Directory, Systems Management Service or System Center Configuration Manager, login scripts, CD, USB drive, and many more third-party software options.

Despite the many options, one common requirement is that applications typically have prerequisites to install before the application can run. Prerequisites can include the .NET Framework, Visual Basic PowerPacks, SQL Server Express, Windows Installer, runtime libraries, or maybe even a custom prerequisite.

There are three concepts in deployment related to prerequisites.

Nesting.
Merging.
Chaining or bootstrapping.

Nesting is the process of embedding a Windows Installer file (.msi) within another .msi file. However, the How to create a nested .msi package article has an important disclaimer.

The drawbacks of creating a nested MSI installation are listed in the same article.

Nested installations cannot share components.
An administrative installation cannot contain a nested installation.
Patching and upgrading will not work with nested installations.
The installer will not correctly cost a nested installation.
Integrated ProgressBars cannot be used with nested installations.
Resources that are to be advertised cannot be installed by the nested installation.
A package that performs a nested installation of an application should also uninstall the nested application when the parent product is uninstalled.

For these reasons, nesting is no longer supported.

Merging includes shared code, files, resources, registry entries, and setup logic to applications as a single compound file. Prerequisites available as a merge module (.msm) form can be added to a .msi file. For example, if a prerequisite is available as an .msm, you can add it to a Setup project in Visual Studio as shown in How to: Create or Add a Merge Module Project. However, merge modules cannot be serviced by the same owner as the .msi file, so it is difficult to fix issues in the merge module. Tao of the Windows Installer, Part 4 lists two cautionary notes:

Do not consume merge modules of vendors who do not promise to fix their merge modules promptly when bugs arrive
Be prepared to handle the heat when bugs are found in your merge module causing issues for others’ products that have consumed your merge module and you get to put out the flame

For these reasons, using merge modules is not recommended.

Chaining or bootstrapping is the process of checking for and installing missing prerequisites, including installing the application that is going to be used to install the rest of the prerequisites and application. You can use Visual Studio to generate a chainer/bootstrapper that is called Setup.exe. This program checks for and installs missing prerequisites before installing the application.

If you have created a Visual Basic Windows application by using Visual Studio, the default selections in the Prerequisites Dialog Box are Windows Installer and the .NET Framework. To learn more about how to install prerequisites in Visual Studio, see the following topics.

How to: Install Prerequisites in Windows Installer Deployment

How to: Install Prerequisites with a ClickOnce Application

You can create custom prerequisites and add them to the Prerequisites Dialog Box in Visual Studio. Use the Bootstrapper Manifest Generator to create a product.xml file that describes the prerequisite and a package.xml files that includes locale-specific error messages. Then, copy the bootstrapper package to \Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bootstrapper\Packages folder. For more information, see Creating Bootstrapper Packages.

You may want to use other tools besides Visual Studio to generate a bootstrapper. For example, you can also use MSBuild and the GenerateBootstrapper Task to create a bootstrapper on a build computer. Alternatively, you can use the Windows Installer XML Toolset to generate .msi files and package prerequisites. For more information, see http://wix.sourceforge.net/.

Nesting and merging create a single file to deploy an application and its prerequisites, but these methods are not supported and not recommended. Chaining or bootstrapping is an effective way of checking for and installing prerequisites on end-user computers so that your applications run successfully. For more questions about chaining and bootstrapping, search for answers or post new questions in the ClickOnce and Setup & Deployment forum.

Happy deployment!

Mary Lee, Programming Writer.

Tips and Tricks for Finding Information in the MSDN Library (Mary Lee)

VBTeam — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 18:37:00 GMT

When you have a question about how an API works, most of you will look in the MSDN Library. There are some tips and tricks to finding what you need in this vast resource. First of all, there are two main ways you can read the content in the MSDN Library.

The offline version that you can install on your development computer.
The online version that you can access via your Web browser.

You can also use the MTPS Web service at http://services.msdn.microsoft.com/ContentServices/ContentService.asmx to access MSDN and TechNet content. For two examples on how to use this Web service, see How to: Bind to a Web Service and Walkthrough: Binding to Data from a Service in an Application-Level Project.

The offline and online versions have their benefits and disadvantages. The offline version has various filters that you can use to limit your search to a certain language. For example, you can limit your search criteria by language (Visual Basic, Visual C++, or Visual C#) or development focus (Office Development or Smart Device Development). The online version is updated on a regular basis, but you don't have to use gigabytes of hard drive space for documentation about technologies or languages that you don't use.

Search engines tend to return results for the most frequently visited topics in the MSDN Library. Unfortunately, this means that the oldest topics are returned first. If multiple versions of a topic exists, you can find the disambiguator in the upper right hand corner of the topic. This will point you to the Visual Studio 2008 version of the topic.

You can use the bread crumbs at the top of the topic to change the version of the topic and navigate the table of contents.

The MSDN Library content does get updated in response to customer feedback and sometimes completely rewritten for the latest version, so use the disambiguator box or bread crumbs to ensure that you're reading the most recent version of a topic.

You can change the locale information (en-us) in the URL to view the translated version of the topic. Replacing (en-us) with (fr-fr) shows the French version of the topic: http://msdn.microsoft.com/fr-fr/library/we86c8x2.aspx. To view the low bandwidth version of the topic, add (loband) to the URL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/we86c8x2(loband).aspx

You can use the MSDN Search refinements to narrow down the search results.

If you want to use a search engine, you can use the site keyword in your search box to apply filters. For example, I can type "site:msdn.microsoft.com vstoinstaller" in the search box to limit my search to the MSDN Library.

Then, a search returns the right topics in the first two search results.

To avoid searching the MSDN forums, you can add "-social" to the search box.

If you have more tips and tricks for finding the right content in the MSDN Library, feel free to follow up with a comment.

Mary Lee, Programming Writer.

Installing the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 as a Prerequisite (Mary Lee)

VBTeam — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:07:03 GMT

By now, you have heard of all the great new features in Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. Now that you've developed your new applications, you want to include the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 as a prerequisite in your Setup project or your ClickOnce installer.

The default deployment experience in VS2008 SP1 is to download and install the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 from the Microsoft Download Center. However, you can add the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 to the Visual Studio bootstrapper directory on your development computer, and make the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installer available in the same directory as your application installer.

The steps to download the full .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and modify the product.xml file are detailed in How to Include .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 with Your Installer. While the blog entry was written initially to answer questions from an Office developer, these steps apply to everyone deploying applications developed with .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.

Happy deployment!

Mary Lee, programming writer.

Looking for Setup and Deployment Project Templates? (Mary Lee)

VBTeam — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:34:00 GMT

Let's say that you've developed an application using the free Visual Studio Express Edition. Now, you want to deploy your application to the masses, and you read documentation about How to: Create or Add Deployment Projects.

Here's how the topic starts:

To create a new deployment project

On the File menu, point to Add, then click New Project.

In the resulting Add New Project dialog box, in the Project Types pane, open the Other Project Types node and select Setup and Deployment Projects.

In the Templates pane, choose the type of deployment project you want to create. For more information, see Setup and Deployment Projects.

In this example, I'm using Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition. However, when I open the New Project dialog box, there isn't an Other Project Types node.

The Other Projects Types node is only available in Standard Edition or higher (such as Professional Edition and Team System Edition). Also, you cannot download the Setup Project templates and add them to Visual Studio Express Edition.

Here, you discover that Visual Studio Express Edition is free, but limited. All of the following versions of the Express Editions have the same limited functionality: Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition,Visual C# 2005 Express Edition, Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition, Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition,Visual C# 2008 Express Edition, and Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition.

All hope is not lost! You can use ClickOnce Deployment to easily share your application with the masses. The ClickOnce Publish Wizard can easily generate a setup.exe to check for and install prerequisites such as the .NET Framework or SQL Server Express Edition. The published files can be copied to a CD, Web site, or network file share where users can download and install your application. ClickOnce can also easily update your application as you incorporate customer feedback and add features.

I created a Web browser based on Creating Your First Visual Basic Program and Video How to: Creating Your First Visual Basic Program. Now, I'll show you how to use the Publish Wizard in Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition to deploy this application to a network file share.

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the solution name and click Publish.

You'll see the Publish Wizard open.

2. Type the location where you want Visual Studio to copy the files, and click Next. This location is called the Publish Location.

3. Type the location where your end users will install your application from, and click Next. This location is called the Install Location. These two locations are separate in case you do not have write access to the network file share. In that case, you would copy the files to your local computer, and an administrator would copy the files to the network file share.

4. Choose where the application is going to be run from, and click Next. If you select "available online or offline," the application is installed onto the end user computer. If you select "only available online only," the application is run from the Install Location.

5. In the final screen of the Publish Wizard, click Finish.

6. Open the network file folder, and verify that all the files are copied there. End users can open the Browser.application, publish.htm, or setup.exe files to start the installation.

For step-by-step instructions about how to publish to a Web site or CD, see How to: Publish a ClickOnce Application.

OK, let's test the installation.

7. Open file location where the application installer is located.

8. In the publish.htm file, click launch or Install.

You'll see the Launching Application dialog box appear momentarily.

9. In the ClickOnce Trust Prompt, click Install. If you don't want your users to see this prompt, you can sign your solution with a code-signing certificate.

10. Test your application.

In the Visual Basic Browser application that I created, I entered http://www.microsoft.com and clicked Go!!!!!! to see my application work successfully on my test computer.

These instructions apply to the Visual Basic and Visual C# Express Editions. The Visual C++ Express Edition development environment doesn't have the ClickOnce Publish Wizard, but you can perform the steps in the Visual Studio command prompt. For more information, see ClickOnce Deployment for Visual C++ Applications.

Enjoy deploying your applications!

Mary Lee, Programming Writer.