I have built one windows forms application and I published for client installation. While installing the setup file, it should ask the user to select the installation directory path; instead, it's installing in default path as below :
C:\Users\Mysys_t\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0\434YBBVC.Z2H\TNYPR09N.1JZ
Is there any settings to do this, so that, while installing, user is able to select the installation directory?
In general, the answer is no. See a related MSDN forums discussion among other online references that explains why: ClickOnce was designed to automatically manage installation directories to prevent deployment collisions.
Now...the referenced MSDN forums discussion also links to one way to possibly work around this. Certainly anything is possible with some ingenuity and work (e.g. publishing a setup wrapper with ClickOnce to leverage ClickOnce's auto updates but use indirection to control where your actual app ultimately gets installed); but this is not possible using ClickOnce "straightforwardly".
this can be achieved by
Creating an MSI Package for C# Windows Application Using a Visual Studio Setup Project
pls follow the link below :
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/1492b1/creating-an-msi-package-for-C-Sharp-windows-application-using-a-v/
Related
I've created a wpf application. Now I need to make an application to download it from a web site to various client machines with no server software. What are the essential requirements that need to be installed from the web to the client in order for the application to work? I am very new to this and am learning as i go along
As stated by the others you may publish your application using clickonce. An alternative approuch is to use a third party installer like wise(yee old .msi is removed from newer visual studios). MS wants you to use clickonce for deployment it may be done manually using mage, through MageUI or visual studio directly. I only use mage.exe for deployment of WPF and XBAP applications, it's nice if you have a buildserver set up and all. Just make some scripts for the deployment that you may reuse, once deployed check your manifest file to see what's included and not.
General information about clickonce.
Mage.exe located in your windows sdk for manually deployment
MageUI, useless for any live production envirnoment...
Hope it helps you some, I know this can be a pain.
Cheers,
Stian
I have an open source WPF application hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/tomhunter-gh/SourceLog
What I was hoping to do was add ClickOnce deployment and host the ClickOnce install on AppHarbor so that users are automatically upgraded when I push new commits to GitHub. What I'm looking for is an auto update feature similar to the GitHub Windows client, and I'm also hoping to find somewhere to host the ClickOnce install bits for free.
I have a number of questions:
How does AppHarbor actually work? As far as I can tell it expects a Visual Studio solution containing a single web application project, which it then builds and "deploys". What specifically does it look for to run, what assumptions is it making? What happens when you have non web projects, or your solution isn't in the root directory for example?
Is there any way to customise the build and deployment process, for example with custom MSBuild scripts?
How would I ensure the WPF project is "published" so that the ClickOnce bits are generated?
Is there any way to get a build number from the AppHarbor build process? E.g. a four part assembly version 1.2.3.4 and write that to the generated binaries/config?
Is there any way for AppHarbor to push the ClickOnce bits back to GitHub after a successful build, so that I could instead host the ClickOnce install on GitHub?
Should I be taking a completely different approach?
It turns out this is entirely possible and the steps are as follows:
AppHarbor
Ensure you are using a Web Worker process.
Add an application in AppHarbor and connect it to your GitHub project.
Solution
Add a web application project to the solution
Copy the v7.0A Windows SDK folder (C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A) to a folder alongside the solution
WPF Project
Set the DefaultTargets attribute of the Project element to Publish.
Set the PublishDir property to $(OutDir)\_PublishedWebsites\{ClickOnceHostWeb}
Set the UpdateUrl property to http://yourapp.apphb.com/.
Set the following additional properties:
<GenerateBootstrapperSdkPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\Lib\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bootstrapper</GenerateBootstrapperSdkPath>
<SdkToolsPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\Lib\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin</SdkToolsPath>
Further details are available in my SourceLog blog post, and a full example is demonstrated by the the SourceLog project on GitHub.
Does anyone know how to specifically include a winforms setup project to be included in the code_drop folder generated when running UppercuTs zip.bat? With the default settings my web applications and WCF services are included, as are the dll's for the solutions core, but not my winforms application/installer
I was just playing around with UppercuT last night, and I ran into the same question.
One tip I found for putting console apps and windows services into the code_drop is to use this Nuget package in your console/windows service projects:
http://nuget.org/packages/publishedapplications
See this for more info:
http://devlicio.us/blogs/rob_reynolds/archive/2011/03/22/published-applications-aka-publishedapplications.aspx
Using this will cause your console/windows service projects to be "published" similary to how a web app is published in the code_drop. However, this isn't what you're asking for, just wanted to point it out if its useful. This also doesn't work for installers.
If your installers are using the default Visual Studio setup projects (.vdproj projects), I haven't tried that, so I can't help there. I do know that MSBuild refuses to build those types of projects (not sure why...), so you might be better off using WiX or another installer technology. You can do an automated build on a vdproj if you run the build by calling devenv.exe directly from the command line, but you can't build those with MSBuild. I did try adding a WiX setup project to my sln, and UppercuT will build the Wix setup project and drop the .msi in the "build_output" folder, but it doesn't copy it over to the code_drop. My thought would be to add a custom post build step to just copy that file over from build_output to code_drop. I haven't had a chance to figure out the logic in the build scripts to see how it chooses which files to copy from build_output to code_drop. If I figure anything out, I'll update this answer.
I have a WPF C# desktop application that will need to be deployed as MSI (Windows Installer deployment, not ClickOnce deployment) in VS2010. My application will generate SQL CE database in run-time, manipulate Excel Workbook, and receive/transmit data from/to COM Port - so I don't know what is the appropriate way to deploy such an application.
I am looking at Windows Installer Deployment Tasks which doesn't help me to get started.
Could anyone show me some resources that give instructions on how to deploy an application as an MSI installer?
If you don't want ClickOnce, then you'll probably need to create your own MSI. In that case, you can use:
The built-in Setup project type in Visual Studio. It does a decent job but has limitations. Works very well if you don't have many dependencies or custom actions.
A commercial tool like InstallShield
WIX (Windows Installer XML)
I've tried both 1 and 3. While WIX has a little bit of a learning curve, it is a very rich way to do what you want to do. There is a fair bit of documentation available and some very nice "out of the box" wizard sequences to handle your standard install scenarios (licenses, feature selection, dependencies, etc). WIX does have some VS integration that works quite well.
You can find out more on WIX at http://wix.sourceforge.net/
Note:
The VS setup project can do custom actions, and install dependencies, but you have to use custom actions. If you want to parameterize the custom actions, then you'll need to find the not-so-intuitive instructions on that topic.
The other limitation of the VS setup project is that the setup project can only be compiled to an MSI by VS (devenv.exe). That means that the MSI cannot be compiled on a build server unless you install Visual Studio there too. This was a show stopper for me, so I switched to WIX and was very happy with the result.
For those like me who found this post after searching high and low for how to deploy an MSI these days, you now need an extension as the visual studio team removed the built in startup project functionality. You now need to download the Visual Studio Installer Projects extension.
See this user voice post for discussion of the removal, and here is a link to the extension.
Useful for people looking for a quick solution to generating an MSI through Visual Studio rather than getting deep into Wix (although if you need more advanced deployment options, definitely go that route).
Configure your WPF application to publish as a ClickOnce application. You can do that in the 'Publish' tab of the project properties.
If you use the 'Publish Wizard' (by clicking on the aptly named button on the properties page) you can specify (on the second page) that the user will install 'From a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM'. This option will produce a setup.exe file in the publish sub-folder of your project output directory. This setup.exe program when launched by your user will install the WPF application. You may choose to include an update functionality (but you don't have to).
The ClickOnce settings also allow you to include additional files (e.g., your SQL CE database file) and pre-requisites if necessary.
I've been facing a deployment problem.I've built a WPF application with visual studio 2008 and created an installer(msi) which works fine.But then it's pain to add automatic update to it. i've seen this article at windowsclient.net but it seems to be pretty old but could have been the perfect thing for me.Then i looked at the .Net Application updater block v2.0 which uses enterprise library june 2005 and for some reason it's not installing on my machine.
I thought i will need to use a more recent Enterprise library so i installed and compiled Enterprise 4.1(october 2008) but nothing better happened.To i decided to give a try to CLickonce deployment.After struggling with it, it was almost perfect.I realized that when i was testing the updates provided by the clickonce on my machine which is XP i didn't notice the need of having sqlite dll in the GAC. surely it was already there.I noticed it when i moved to vista that there is a problem.After checking the net i know it's impossible to add a dll to the Global Assembly Cache.
Now i'm stuck, i think i've hit a wall.Can any one share some of his experience? I'm willing to try the updater block if i can get help.
Thanks for reading this!!
(Won't fit in a comment)
Here's something helpful -- you can deploy the SQLCE dll's locally, instead of installing as a prerequisite, which makes it easier to deploy. Check out this article.
This is another useful article: how to keep your data safe from ClickOnce updates.
This will make more sense if you check out this thread. I have a post in this thread that has two links in it. One points to the ClickOnce way of handling database deployment, the other to a thread that is essentially the same as the blog article above.
First, you can't use that updater block. It was for .NET 1.1. It was marked obsolete when ClickOnce deployment was added in .NET 2.0.
You probably don't need to install that dll in the GAC. In many cases, you can just include it in the deployment, and it will find the local reference and use it. It just depends on the dll. So here's what I recommend you try:
Add the dll to your project. Set the 'build action' to 'none'. Set 'copy to local directory' as 'do not copy'.
Delete the reference in your project to that dll, and re-add it. But instead of picking it from the GAC, browse to the one you just added to your project and select it. On the reference properties, set 'copy local' to 'true'.
Now when you run it, it will access the local copy instead of looking for one in the GAC.
Like I said, this works great in some cases. It works for SQLCE and DirectX, but not for something like Infragistics. Some assemblies really do have to be installed in the GAC. The only way you will know is if you try it.
If you DO end up having to put it in the GAC, you can create an MSI to do that and deploy it as a prerequisite to the ClickOnce application. So you can still use ClickOnce for your main app.