I'm developing a small WinForms program for home use - I have no intentions to releasing it anywhere.
Running it on my development machine, where I have Visual Studio and .NET and whatever else installed, works but deploying it on my PC, where I might not have all those frameworks, doesn't. I'm using some library written in C++ so I'm assuming I'm going to need some version of Visual C++ Redistributable, but I'm not sure which? And I'm not sure if that would be all. So, how can I determine an application's software prerequisites?
I used Dependency Walker and I got a message IEHIMS.DLL - Error opening file. The system cannot find the file specified (2), but that's all I could make out; there is so much information I'm having trouble make sense of it all. Besides, according to a quick google, IESHIMS.DLL has something to do with Internet Explorer, so it shouldn't really matter.
Thanks in advance to anyone taking to the time to consider my question.
Kind regards
For framework you can set the prerequisites for your application by going to project properties -> Publish -> Prerequisites. So now, if the required framework is not installed on the deployment machine, the setup will prompt for an install.
Now, for other dlls you are using, copy those dlls to your bin folder of the project and add the files while creating setup. This will solve the problem.
Related
I've seen that there is a lot of literature about this topic, but nothing specific to VS2017.
I've created an application that works properly on my PC, but when i move it to another one it doesn't start at all.
I've tried to install the latest version of .Net Framework (4.7.1) but it looks like the new pc doesn't recognize it. In the framework folder below directory reference assemblies it's missing, only 3.0 and 3.5 are available.
I have seen that there is another method to let the application run: static linking of dll. But I didn't find the way to do it with VS2017. There isn't section c++\c where flag /mt instead of /md. I know that my application will be larger, but I don't mind.
I created a WPF application using telerik control suite (WPF telerik controls and ORM access control) and SQL Express R2 2008 in VS 2012.
Then I created its setup files (using install shield LE and also Advanced Installer) which works on my win7 system, properly () .but when I install the setup file on any other win7 system, it doesn’t work( I am getting this error: “MyAPP has stopped working”).
I installed .NET framework and SQL Express R2 2008(the service’s status is running) and I also copied the mdf and ldf files related to the database in right path that specified in app.xaml.
When I install my setup files, it just copy my project’s debug folder (contains the telerik control dll files, the dll file related to my ORM access control project, built exe file and etc.). I think that’s enough. Isn’t it?
Edit:
The project's Solution's Explorer:
\bin\Debug
I have no idea what to do.
I would really really appreciate any hint or comment.
Regards,
Hiva
I know this is a very general answer although without knowing the details of your project it's the best I can do. I remember when I was creating an app using telerik controls, when I went to publish it I was getting errors in the with the assembly which was a result of including the obj / Debug / Release folders in my project. I tried everything that people listed to get rid of the errors but the only thing that helped was creating a new project, copying in the code and NEVER including(Never right clicking and hitting include in project) those folders in my project.
Is it working when you debug it?
Could you please let me know what steps you are taking to publish the app ?
I have started to use WIX to deploy a WPF application. I have created the .wxs file with the desired interface features etc...
My questions is how to distribute the required .Net files that support my WPF executable? Not the .net framework or sql server express, but the dependencies needed to run my executable.
Should the process include building a msi with VS Installer, then including that msi into my WIX script and running that inside of my WIX msi?
Or, what is the correct process for distributing a WPF executable with WIX?
I don't think your question pertains to WiX or WPF at all. What you need to ensure is that you package up the necessary dependencies along with your installer, whatever they may be. Referencing your dependency files in your installer script should be sufficient.
Here's the process that I follow for any application.
1) Start with a clean VM that represents the least common denominator of a machine I want to target. Let's say WinXP SP2 32bit.
2) Deploy my application by hand and record all of the steps in a word document. Then try those steps on other OS's to make sure you didn't miss anything.
3) Take each of the steps in my document and implement them in WxS. Keep in mind that Windows Installer and Windows Installer XML is a declarative programming language not an imperative programming language. You don't tell it to xcopy files from dir a to dir b, you describe the directory structure and the installer takes care of it.
BTW, of the things you mentioned, your asking for help with what I consider the simple stuff and excluding the harder more complicated stuff.
As an alternative way, you might see also this post Embedding dlls in a compiled executable to embed all the dll needed (like the interop ones for example) using Costura.Fody. Using WIX there is no more need to add any dependent dll as components in the .wsx file.
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.
I built a WPF application in VS.NET 2008 using ClickOnce deployment. It ran great on any machine that had VS.NET installed, but my business users received an error: "Unable to install or run the application. The application requires that assembly Microsoft.Windows.Design.Extensibility Version 3.5.0.0 be installed in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) first."
I was surprised to discover that this dll is not part of the standard .NET 3.5 SP1 client installation, but somehow, my application thought it was needed. I checked my Publish tab for the project and it showed up as a prerequisite.
Oddly enough, I was able to just remove this (and all of the other Microsoft.Windows.Design.* dlls) and it just worked everywhere. I removed them from my project entirely, and everything was fine.
Can someone explain why the VS.NET 2008 project wizard forced these to be included in the project, and more importantly, why ClickOnce thought they needed to be on the client machine to run?
This is just a curiosity question, but I'm sure I'm not the first to be bitten by it. Hopefully, this post will at least save someone else the headache.
Try to remove all references to *.Design.dll. In my case it was WPFToolkit.Design.dll.
This is old and the OP is gone, but I ran into this today, so I thought I'd mention that my solution was removing a reference to one of the WPFToolkit references that ends with .Design.
I had referenced System.Windows.Controls.Input.Toolkit, but also had a reference to System.Windows.Controls.Input.Toolkit.Design, which should not have been there. Removed it, and all was right with the world again.
A way to find out the code that is loading the assembly is explained here:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wpf/thread/755272f6-0e79-4a6d-ae50-4412d0f2bc4c
I found that I was using the SelectionCommands.Clear property which is inside the Microsoft.Windows.Design.Interaction namespace inside the Microsoft.Windows.Design.Extensibility Version dll.
Beats be why this dll isn't included in the .NET 3.5 install.