I created some custom modules and Visual Studio drops the build files directly into the Kofax Bin directory. It is important to note that I'm using the modules as Winforms applications and Windows services (at the same time). The generated files are
MyModule.exe
MyModule.exe.config
MyModule.InstallLog
MyModule.InstallState
MyModule.pdb
I think that I only need the .exe file here. Of course I also add the .aex file to the directory to install the module. I also created two batch files to register the module on the local machine
RegAscEx.exe MyModule.aex
pause
and to install the module as a Windows service
"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\installutil.exe" "%~dp0MyModule.exe"
pause
after running them as administrator I can delete them from the directory of course. I would like to know if it should be always fine to provide the .exe file, .aex file and the two batch files (which will be deleted later) only?
Basically correct. Some thoughts:
Build your application using the Release configuration (vs Debug). See discussion here.
PDB files usually are not needed in production. Still, you may want to generate and keep them if you plan on debugging in production.
The app.config file should be kept. Maybe you want to use application settings later on, and the supportedRuntime element is useful if someone wants to run your CM on a machine without that version of .NET framework being present (Windows will show a nice error message)
Keep the AEX file. This is required if someone wants to register your CM on another machine (e.g. deploying from DEV > TEST > PROD).
Include a single batch file that allows registering your CM on a new machine as well as adding it to Kofax Capture. Here's an example:
rem "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\RegAsm.exe" SmartCAP.CM.Sample.dll /codebase /tlb:SmartCAP.CM.Sample.tlb
rem RegAscSc.exe /f Register.inf
Another thing I usually include is the ability to install my CM in a similar fashion to native KC modules, for example: SmartCAP.CM.Sample.exe -install and SmartCAP.CM.Sample.exe -uninstall. Take a look at the AssemblyInstaller class for details.
Related
I launched an appimage using appimagelauncher. Then, I modified some settings of that app.
I know that appimages are not installed, so it can't be uninstalled. So, I deleted the appimage file.
But, when I downlaoded the appimage again, I observed that the user's previously modified settings were still there.
Now, how can I completely remove those user modified settings and launch that software as if it were newly installed?
The AppImage format doesn't define an explicit place where the applications configuration should be installed. Which means that the application can write such file wherever they please (as a regular installed application does).
Applications usually write their configurations to "$HOME/.config", you can look there for a file or folder with the application name. You can also ask the application author or check the documentation.
Is there a way to copy only modified files to Service Fabric.
I have a Service Fabric application containing an ASP. Net 5 application as service. Whenever am doing a change to a JavaScript file inside my ASP. Net 5 service, every time I need to copy the entire service fabric application package. Is there a command which allows to copy only the modified file?
The best way to accomplish this is to use diff packaging and app upgrade. See this link for more info: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/service-fabric-application-upgrade-advanced/. Diff packaging allows you to define an application package that only contains the package parts that you wish to upgrade. However, it only applies to a component of an application package, such as a Service or Code package for example. You can't create a diff package at the file level. So if you've only changed a single file in your code package, you must include that file along with every other file that belongs to the code package. You can't just include the single file that changed. But the benefit of diff packaging is that you'd only need to include that single code package. You wouldn't need to provide other Service's code packages, for example, assuming they haven't been changed.
Service Fabric SDK 2.5 brings in a preview feature called "Refresh Application".
Using this feature you can get quicker feedback of your code changes.
To enable that, set the following from project properties
Application Debug mode = Refresh Application.
More details and limitations can be found here:
https://sharepointforum.org/threads/speed-up-service-fabric-development-with-the-new-refresh-application-debug-mode.111162/
In Fabric Explorer you need to find the node where you Web Application is running. I my case that is _Node_0
By SF SDK design, local SF published file is under C:\SfDevCluster\Data_App\ . In my environment, the website file path is C:\SfDevCluster\Data_App_Node_0\Application1Type_App1\Web1Pkg.Code.1.0.0\wwwroot\
So you can also find your HTML, CSS, JS and other static resources under below path: C:\SfDevCluster\Data_App[node_id][application_type_and_instance_name][service_type_and_version]\
You can just modify the files in this folder, then the change will immediately apply to your local test web browser. Please notice if your service is hosted by micro-service running in several nodes, you may need to modify all nodes files because load balancer may access any folder files randomly.
maybe I am blind or I don't understand something right. I have created some HelloWorld-App and now I would like to test in on my device directly. (not via Visual Studios' Remote Tools)
So created my app package in VS but selected "No" for "Uploading to Windows Store" since I want to try it out localy.
The build an verification is successful and all but at the end I got a folder ("HelloWorld_1.0.1.0_Test") in the "AppPackages"-Folder. There are a couple of files. .appxbundle, .appxsym (for each architectiure one)
But if I want to install an app via the device manager it requires an .appx file. Where do I get this one?
I googled a lot, but I only found the descriptions for using the Windows Store.
Isn't it possible without it or am I missing something?
Kind Regards
Pavel
I don't know which device manager you install it through, but an appxbundle should be the fine. It's a ZIP file which includes several appx files (for several display scales, languages, ...).
But generally, inside the AppPackages folder there should be a folder like "AppName_1.0.0.0_Test". VS creates not only the appxbundle there, but also a Powershell script Add-AppDevPackage.ps1. Run it as admin and it installs the app if sideloading is enabled. This should be the easiest option to test apps on other machines without Store submissions.
For a project I am currently working on, I need to create a setup application for an existing desktop application. The setup application will be downloaded from a website, and will download required files to the correct locations. When the application is started, it will look for newer versions of these files, download them if any exist, then start the application.
I am using Visual Studio Online with TFVC, linked to Azure. I have a test application set up so that when I trigger a build, Release Management finds the build directory, and moves the files to Azure Blob Storage, but prepends a GUID to the file names being transferred. So what I have in my storage container is:
{Some GUID}/2390/Test.exe
{Some GUID}/2389/Test.exe
{Some GUID}/2387/Test.exe
...
What I want in my container is the latest version of Test.exe, so I can connect to the container, and determine whether I want to download or not.
I have put together a NullSoft installer that checks a website, and downloads files. I have also written a NullSoft "launcher" that will compare local file versions with versions on the website (using a version xml file on the website), and download if newer, then launch the application. What I need to figure out is how to get the newer files to the website after a build, with automation being one of the goals.
I am an intern, and new to deployment in general, and I don't even know if I'm going about this the right way.
Questions:
Does what I am doing make sense for what I am trying to accomplish?
We are trying to emulate ClickOnce functionality, but can't use ClickOnce due to the fact that the application dynamically loads a number of DLLs. Is there a way to configure ClickOnce to include non-referenced DLLs?
Is there a best practice for doing what I'm describing?
I appreciate any advice, links to references, or real-world examples.
You are mentioning ClickOnce, which you investigated but can't use. Have you already tried an alternative: Squirrel? With Squirrel you can specify which files should be part of the installation, allowing you to explicitly specify which files to include even if you load them dynamically.
Link: https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows
Squirrel is a full framework for creating an auto-update application and can work with Azure Blob Storage hosting (and also CDN if you need to scale up)
Using Visual Studio 2012, Azure SDK 2.1, I am trying to figure out the best way to create the csx folder for running in the azure emulator. My understanding is that the csx folder is not created until I package the Azure project. I can create a package manually from Visual Studio, but this is not an option for an automated build. The other option is to create the package using the msbuild command line. This seems a bit heavy handed as it will actually do a build which is more time consuming than just repackaging.
So, I thought that cspack might be a more lightweight option. However, when I call cspack with the following command line:
cspack.exe ServiceDefinition.csdef /copyOnly
I get the error: Need to specify the physical directory for the virtual path 'Web/' of role MyProjWeb.
But, I don't do anything like that when using msbuild. I have read a bunch of things about specifying the physical directory and some of the confusion that it can cause. So, I would prefer not to use it unless absolutely necessary, especially since I don't need to specify this when building from msbuild.
So, my main question is what is msbuild doing that cspack is not doing and how do I do the same with cspack?
My other question is, what is the easiest way to generate the csx folder for testing in the azure emulator?
Edit - Resolution
I thought that I would put down how I resolved this here in case it helps someone else. The big answer to my question (thanks to Chandermani and some other reading) is that CSPack with /copyOnly is basically a fancy xcopy to a folder structure according to some rules. If not using /copyOnly it then also does a fancy zip to create a package. Not complaining, it is fine that it is simple, but it is good to know this at the outset. You can use it for packaging anything for azure it is not tied to what can be built in Visual Studio, e.g. a PHP site. Using msbuild has the added benefit of only copying that files that are part of your web site deployment.
So, what I found when I got CSPack working and pointed at the mvc project folder is that it copied everything including source files. Which is not what I wanted. The solution that I could find is to first package the web site then point CSPack at the packaged files. If you do down this path then this link is very valuable as it describes it step by step.
So, it was either having an msbuild post-step in the Web project to package the files and then a post-step in my Azure project to cspack it or to have an msbuild post-step in my azure project to create the package (do cspack with the benefit of only including my web deployment files). Well, it seemed simpler and less error prone to just to have the one post step and let msbuild do the heavy lifting. So, the post step in my azure project is something like:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Azure\Emulator\csrun.exe" /devfabric:shutdown > NUL
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Azure\Emulator\csrun.exe" /devstore:shutdown > NUL
if $(ConfigurationName) == Debug set CONSTANTSPARAMETER=DEBUG
if $(ConfigurationName) == Release set CONSTANTSPARAMETER=
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe $(ProjectDir)$(ProjectFileName) /t:clean;publish /p:Configuration=$(ConfigurationName) /p:TargetProfile=cloud /p:OutputPath=bin\Cloud$(ConfigurationName) /p:VisualStudioVersion=11.0 /p:overwritereadonlyfiles=true /p:DefineConstants="%CONSTANTSPARAMETER%" /verbosity:minimal /p:PostBuildEvent=
The first two lines shut down the compute and storage emulator.
The next two lines set the preprocessor constants. I found that #if DEBUG was no longer taking effect when built using the msbuild line. I think that this is safety protection that DEBUG is stripped when creating a package. I only ever use the package that is created by an automated build system, so it is safe for me to keep the DEBUG constant.
The actual msbuild line has a number of switches. I'll describe the unusual ones:
/p:PostBuildEvent=
If we don't set the postBuildEvent to empty then the same post step will keep getting called forever. And ever...
/p:VisualStudioVersion=11.0
Those clever guys at Microsoft made it possible to open projects with both Visual Studio 2010 and 2012. Which is great, but can bring great sadness when you run msbuild from the command line and end up with nasty MSB4019 error messages because it is looking in the wrong Visual Studio folder for the Azure tools.
Also, note that that I use the cloud profile. Since I am only after the csx files it doesn't seem to make a difference whether I use local or cloud at this point. When I run in azure I specify ServiceConfiguration.Local.cscfg.
Edit: In the end I took this out of the post step and put in my automated build. My original intention was that running the tests from my dev machine would be the same as my automated build, but the post step took too long and the views were sourced from the obj folder rather than the proj folder when running under the debugger which meant I had to copy across when making changes on the fly.
Unanswered questions
It would still be good to understand how msbuild does things to reduce knowledge friction when dabbling in this area. Does it create a package for the website and pass it to CSPack? Or does it parse the project files and then pass some crazy arguments to CSPack? Also when you run an azure project in the debugger, it runs in the emulator with only the binaries in the csx folder (not the images, etc). How does it do that? It would be great to see some description with pictures of the Azure build pipeline with that showed the lifecycle all the way to deployment. That might also explain why there are two copies of the binaries. Also, this would have been a whole lot easier if Visual studio had a project flag like packageOnBuild for the Azure project with options to do a copyOnly or to create a package. I see no point in uneaten cake. Edit: There is a DeployOnBuild setting that can be added to csproj.
Finally, as I mentioned the whole purpose of this is to get a csx folder that I can point the emulator at so that I can run my unit tests on my dev machine. I do the formal packaging on a build machine so don't really need it in Visual Studio. So, really I don't want to package anything and was hoping that there was an easier way of achieving all this.
Since msbuild uses the the azure project file to perform the build, it can derive a lot of information form the project file.
For cspack, the assumption is the role code has been compiled and is available for packaging. Since cspack does not depend upon project file, it needs a explicit information for the code path of the the web\workerrole project. The csdef file does not contain any such information. I suggest if you want to use cspack. Look at its documentation and try to create a package for emulator deployment from command line (CopyOnly option). Once you find the correct syntax you can embed it in you build script.