VS.NET Installer Documentation

[David Elliott]

I was wondering if there is any documentation on how to create an installer using the VS.NET Installer Project. I have played with it and understand
some. I am specifically interested in how to:

1) See if .NET is installed and install if necessary
2) See if a database is installed (MSDE) and install if necessary
3) How to create program groups and short cuts for the START Menu
4) How to see if there is a previous version of software on the machine and overwrite, not the default of uninstall and then install.

Thanks,
Dave

 

[Herfried K. Wagner]

Hello,

I was wondering if there is any documentation on how to
create an installer using the VS.NET Installer Project. I
have played with it and understand some.

Framework 1.0:

..NET Framework Deployment Guide
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/dotnetframedepguid.asp

Using Visual Studio .NET to Redistribute the .NET Framework
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/vsredistdeploy.asp

Framework 1.1:

Redistributing the .NET Framework 1.1
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/redistdeploy1_1.asp

..NET Framework 1.1 Deployment Guide
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/dotnetframedepguid1_1.asp

..NET Framework 1.1 Redistributable Prerequisites
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/NETFx1Redistreq1_1.asp

..NET Framework Redistributable Package 1.1 Technical Reference
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/dotnetfxref1_1.asp

Using Visual Studio .NET 2003 to Redistribute the .NET Framework
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/vsredistdeploy1_1.asp

Regards,
Herfried K. Wagner

 

[David Guyer [MS]]

You might start with our walkthroughs at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vsintro7/ht
ml/vxoriDeployWalkthroughs.asp

As for your other questions:
1) You can detect it, by adding a .NET Frameworks Launch Condition, but you
can't really install it... to do that, try using a bootstrapper such as the
one at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/dotnetframedepguid.asp
2) One of the walkthroughs has some info on installing MSDE databases, but
for MSDE itself, the best answer is to use a Launch condition, if its not
installed, inform the user that they need to install it.
3) the Start Menu is basically the User's Programs Menu folder... just
create shortcuts and put them in this folder (or subfolders you create).
4) as it turns out, if you don't have "RemovePreviousVersion" on the
project set to True, then Windows Installer will actually overwrite files.
The only bad thing is that it will look like both versions of the product
are installed. We don't really support a real "overwrite" mode since it's
pretty dangerous, so we do the safest thing. In order to get that
behavior, you'd have to make some pretty advanced edits to the built .MSI
file.


---
David Guyer - VBQA Deployment Testing
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--------------------

I was wondering if there is any documentation on how to create an

installer using the VS.NET Installer Project. I have played with it and
understand

some. I am specifically interested in how to:

1) See if .NET is installed and install if necessary
2) See if a database is installed (MSDE) and install if necessary
3) How to create program groups and short cuts for the START Menu
4) How to see if there is a previous version of software on the machine

and overwrite, not the default of uninstall and then install.