Installing Silverlight 4 Toolkit without Visual studio 2010 (for build server) - silverlight

I have just been informed that the Silverlight 4 Toolkit (latest download) requires the prior installation of VS 2010.
We are setting up an automated build server for a very large Silverlight Prism project and would prefer not to do a full install of VS 2010 on an unmanned build machine.
Is VS 2010 actually required for an install of the Silverlight 4 Toolkit?
Why is it required?
Is it possible to work around this (copy specific pieces from another Dev machine?)
Thanks in advance for any information.

The problem with this is that it doesn't install the msbuild tasks. I have found that it is possible to install just the SDK by extracting it from the tools download. For details see here: http://neilsleightholm.blogspot.com/2010/09/building-silverlight-4-applications.html.

Don't install the Toolkit at all. In these large controlled scenarios you would probably want to copy the toolkit dlls to folder owned by your change control system anyway.
Ultimately the toolkit is just a set of dlls. On install it does other things to make using it as a developer convenient in VS and Blend but it has no special requirements at build time.

Related

Silverlight Framework - (End User)

I have never used Silverlight before but have been provided a copy of the package, (see link below).
https://github.com/ivconsult/eNeg
Please could I request guidance on how I would compile this and can this be run from desktop or would it need to be uploaded to a server.
Forgive, my poor understanding of how this works any help appreciated . . .
Your question is a bit rough. You can run any silverlight application locally on your development PC. In order to open and compile the project you have to install:
A .NET Integrated Development Environment (IDE) such as Visual Studio or the free Visual Web Developer Express
Install Microsoft Silverlight runtime for windows. (This is the runtime that’s required for Silverlight applications).
Install Silverlight Toolkit
Install Silverlight SDK
Install Silverlight Tools for VS 2010 (Optional)
Install Expression Blend. This is a design tool that allows users to
interact with Silverlight.
After this, open the solution file "citPOINT.eNeg.sln".

How to create an MSIX package for WinForms app?

I'm trying to move to MSIX to install our application, which is currently deployed to our customers via a ClickOnce installation which requires updating on startup, if there is an update. Its a .Net Framework (4.7.2) WinForms app. I'm a bit lost on how to begin; the documentation seems to start from an existing installer package (including ClickOnce), but I'd like to generate this without an intermediate step on our build server as we want to phase out the ClickOnce installation completely once we've proven MSIX will work for us.
I found the Windows Application Packaging Project, but it seems targeted to UWP app, which ours is not, and we have the need to install on Windows 7 SP1 or higher.
What tool would I use to create an MSIX package non-interactively? Would the WAPP play any role in the process?
Here is a similar thread on MSFT's MSIX community. It's talking about VS 2017, but most of the info applies to 2019 too.
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/msix-packaging-and-tools/build-msix-from-vs-2017-pro-v-15-9-4/m-p/952246
An extract from the above link:
You should be able to use the windows application packaging project to package MSIX. Please see: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/desktop/desktop-to-uwp-packaging-dot-net
Alternatively, you could package your MSIX by hand using: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/desktop/desktop-to-uwp-manual-conversion
Additionally, if you want to use the MSIX Packaging Tool, you might be able to leverage our pre-made VM: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/packaging-tool/quick-create-vm even if your enterprise is still on an older release of windows.
You can also try partner solutions, like Advanced Installer's VS extension which can build an MSIX and MSI from the same project, if you need to target different users. The extension also supports debugging apps inside the msix container.
Disclaimer: I work on the team building Advanced Installer.

Prerequisites button disabled - MSI installer

I have created an .msi installer. I want to further add prerequisites (such as .Net) but when I go to Setup Project properties, the Prerequisites button is disabled. How do I enable it?
Other details:
I'm using VS 2015, SQL Server 2008 R2, .Net 4.5.2, C#, WinForms, Win
10 Pro x64
My setup project is in the same solution as the main project
Prerequisities in Visual Studio Projects
In Configuration at the top of the dialog, did you try to select either Release or Debug? That should enable the Prerequisites... button.
Unecessary, outdated prerequisites?
One pet-peeve of mine: is it really necessary to include the .NET runtime as a prerequisite when most users have it installed by their deployment team (corporations) or via Windows Update (home and small office users)?
If there are security updates for the runtime, your old, embedded runtime is just a nuisance to be honest. Corporate packagers spend a great deal of time removing runtimes and prerequisites for corporate deployment where all runtime components are packaged separately in the corporate standard format. Perhaps consider making a special corporate "large scale deployment" version of your setup bundle? Just a zip with components will be very appreciated, along with a one page PDF on how to deploy them.
For the .NET framework you could just add a launch condition to abort the installation if the runtime is not found, and tell the user to get the runtime via Windows Update or from their system administrator or deployment team.
Just a thought I wanted to share with you. Prerequisites can really bloat a setup - especially when they are almost never needed like the .NET framework. In the future we will certainly pull prerequisite packages straight from online repositories and not embed anything in our main setups (and probably struggle with new security issues from that approach).
What version of the .NET Framework is included in what version of the OS?
Selectively disable versions of the .NET Framework (.NET versions overwrite each other)
WiX and other deployment technologies
Setup projects are rather limited. If you find yourself needing more features, you might want to check out the WiX toolkit.
Here is a previous answer on WiX and other deployment tools that seems to have been helpful for people: MSI vs nuget packages: which are is better for continuous delivery?

Silverlight 3 and Silverlight 4 Coexistance

I work on several projects with different development environments. I would like to maintain a Visual Studio 2008/Silverlight 3 environment on the same development workstation as a Visual Studio 2010/Silverlight 4 environment. If possible, I would like to be able to work on both at the same time, without using virtual machines.
Has anyone done that successfully? Is there anything special I need to do to help them coexist? I previously installed Silverlight 4, and it prevented me from working in the Visual Studio 2008/Silverlight 3 environment. But it is possible that I did something wrong in the setup.
I don't think the two can coexist next to each other. You will either need to make a VM with the specified configuration, or specify the SL version in Visual Studio.
Can you ellaborate why you can't run you SL3 project in VS 2008?
Could you use VS 2010 for your SL3 work? VS 2010 includes multi-targeting capabilities, and is compatible with Silverlight 3 out of the box. SL4 support is added with the SL4 development tools, so at that point it supports both.
You can pick which Silverlight version you want each project to be either at project creation time (for new projects), or in the project Properties (for existing projects).

Silverlight 3 - Visual Studio Tools

I am trying to get started doing some Silverlight development. I am interested in learning about the out-of-browser support. I can create and run Silverlight 3 applications just fine. I have confirmed that I have Silverlight 3 instead of Silverlight 3 Beta. I have been able to confirm this because my API list includes Application.InstallStateChanged instead of Application.ExecutionStateChanged.
However, I do not have the option to enable my application to run offline in Visual Studio. I can see this option in this blog post (http://johnpapa.net/silverlight/updated-silvertwit-code-for-msdn-magazine/). Unfortunately, I do not have the option shown or the Reduce XAP size option. I have downloaded the Visual Studio tools from here (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9442b0f2-7465-417a-88f3-5e7b5409e9dd&displaylang=en).
What am I doing wrong?
Thank you!
It looks like John Papa is using a new version of visual studio possibly the VS2010 beta.
Try this tutorial instead
http://wildermuth.com/2009/03/18/Enabling_Out-of-Browser_Support_in_Silverlight_3
or
http://blogs.msdn.com/katriend/archive/2009/07/10/silverlight-3-out-of-browser-applications.aspx
Corrupted Install
It looks like a corrupted install. Try uninstalling and then see Allen Chen's advice here:
http://silverlight.net/forums/t/83226.aspx including:
Silverlight3_Tools.exe /x:c:\temp /u to manually extract the SL 3 files and c:\temp\SPInstaller.exe to verify the tools install.
Use Blend
Also, If you have Blend 3 installed (preview here) you can enable Out of the Browser inside of Blend. See Project->Silverlight Project Options.
One thing might be that your Silverlight developer runtime got corrupted/overwritten. Try installing it once and see if it solves...
http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight3/default.aspx

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