This question already has an answer here:
Run a [Code] or PowerShell script in Inno Setup compiler
(1 answer)
Closed 5 years ago.
I have only just realised that the latest version of Inno Setup supports signonce for the[Files] section. This means I no longer need to use my batch file to do it!
As a result, it is possible to take this batch content:
echo Building Help file
CALL "C:\Program Files (x86)\HTML Help Workshop\HHC.EXE" ..\Help\MeetSchedAssist.HHP
echo Copying help file to the release folder
copy ..\Help\MeetSchedAssist.CHM "..\Meeting Schedule Assistant\Release\MeetSchedAssist.CHM"
And perform this action in the Pre Compilation Step? Then I won't need to use my batch file.
I tried this:
[PreCompile]
Name: "C:\Program Files (x86)\HTML Help Workshop\hhc.exe"; Parameters: "..\Help\MeetSchedAssist.HHP"
I realise it does not do the copying. Not worked that out. But when I compile I only see this in the output window:
It is not clear to me if it has performed the help compilation as I expected to see output. I am running this in Inno Script Studio.
[PreCompile] is special section in Inno Script Studio, such code will not work in standard Inno Setup (any version)!
You have to contact authors of this tool to update/fix this feature, but it looks it was abandoned (the newest version is more than 3 years old).
Consider switching to Visual Studio and compiling scripts using Visual & Installer extension (3rd party: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=unSignedsro.VisualInstaller).
In Visual Studio you can set Post-Build event(s) and Pre-Build event(s) where you can define any task (like signing, generating docs, copying, or any batch file, ...) to perform before/after the script is compiled.
(credits: I am developer of Visual & Installer, sorry for little promo)
Related
I need some help, I have some .hlp files and I want to convert it to .chm files, as .hlp files don't run on Windows 10.
How can I do that?
I see two or more solutions depending on your requirements:
Converting WinHelp (HLP) to HTMLHelp (CHM) or PDF
Running WinHelp files on Windows10
Convert WinHelp (HLP) to HTMLHelp (CHM):
A tutorial on my site gives a step-by-step description how to convert WinHelp (HLP) to HTMLHelp (CHM) on a freeware/shareware and "low budget" level. The conversion project example from the download section includes a working structure and example files.
You can of course use a helpauthoring tool (HAT) like Help+Manual, HelpScribble or any other HAT to convert existing WinHelp projects to HTMLHelp.
Run WinHelp on Windows 10:
WinHlp32 for Windows 10 restores the ability to open and view .hlp files on Windows 10.
WinHlp32 for Windows 10 6.3.9600.16411 (MajorGeeks) OR
see further information and the man's way below.
The WinHelp (.hlp) format has been around since the very early 1990s and is superseded by HTML Help 1.x (.chm). Microsoft strongly advise you move away from WinHelp about ten years ago. But for a test application it's running on my Windows10 machine like a charm.
But some heavy steps to fix the bygone WinHelp Viewer. Please note I don't speak of the HTMLHelp Viewer for *.chm help files here.
Following the solution steps depends on your Windows 10 Version (32 bit or 64 bit). To find out your system type (32 bit or 64 bit), Hold the Windows+R. Type msinfo32 in the Run dialog box that appears and Press Enter.
You know, trying to open a help file (*.hlp) results on a Microsoft Support page.Error opening Help in Windows-based programs: "Feature not included" or "Help not supported".
You'll find a download link for Windows 8.1 but you have to install in a special way for Windows 10 (Windows8.1-KB917607-x64.msu).
Start your command prompt as Administrator (Please NOTE - samples for German here)!
Extract the downloaded .msu file to a temp directory
md msu-extracted
expand Windows8.1-KB917607-x64.msu /f:* .\msu-extracted
Extract the contained CAB-File with 279 files in it.
cd msu-extracted
md cab-extracted
expand Windows8.1-KB917607-x64.cab /f:* .\cab-extracted
Depending on your language settings locate the matching MUI-File e.g. use "cs-", “de-” or "en-". People using the x86 variant need to run “dir x86de-.”
cd cab-extracted
Navigate to the given path for your language "... de-de ..." e.g.:
cd amd64_microsoft-windows-winhstb.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.3.9600.20470_de-de_1ab8cd412c1028d0
Here we'll find “winhlp32.exe.mui”. Now we need to replace e.g.
%SystemRoot%\de-de\winhlp32.exe.mui with our new file:
takeown /f "%SystemRoot%\de-de\winhlp32.exe.mui"
icacls "%SystemRoot%\de-de\winhlp32.exe.mui" /grant "%UserName%":f
ren %SystemRoot%\de-de\winhlp32.exe.mui winhlp32.exe.mui.w10
copy winhlp32.exe.mui %SystemRoot%\de-de\winhlp32.exe.mui
takeown /f "%SystemRoot%\winhlp32.exe"
icacls "%SystemRoot%\winhlp32.exe" /grant "%UserName%":f
ren %SystemRoot%\winhlp32.exe winhlp32.exe.w10
cd ..
dir *.exe /s
Find the right path starting either with amd64 or x86 and navigate
to it:
cd "amd64_microsoft-windows-winhstb_31bf3856ad364e35_6.3.9600.20470_none_1a54d9f2f676f6c2"
copy winhlp32.exe %SystemRoot%\winhlp32.exe
Edit:
You don't need to replace _none_ in the last cd command step (all single steps tested 2017-09-01 and 2018-08-24 and working on Windows 10).
There is a reset of the workaround described above after a main Microsoft Windows update.
Edit: (copied form comments, thanks to #dxiv)
An alternative to the last couple of steps is to copy the winHlp32 files entirely elsewhere, like C:\etc[\de-de], then re-associate ftype hlpfile=C:\etc\winHlp32 %1 at an elevated command prompt. This avoids clashes with sfc and future windows updates, and HLPs would still work when opened by association (double-click in explorer, or start old.hlp at the cmd prompt).
You can convert HLP to HTML, using a Chrome extension:
<< CHM, HLP Viewer and Extractor >>
Proposed by : https://ehubsoft.herokuapp.com/chmviewer
Well people, after a long time searching, my conclusion was: .HLP files can't be executed by Windows 8 and 10, just in Windows 7 and lower. .CHM files can be executed by Windows 8 and windows 10. SO, I had to create my new .chm file in Help Development Studio on Windows 10 to be executed by it. My old files .HLP became obsolete. It took so much time to do this but I learned so much about this type of files.
Finally, thank you for your contribution to my question.
You are a hero sir! I ended up using HelpScribble and using its Decompiler linked here.
Quoting their website:
If you have an existing WinHelp file without the HPJ and RTF source files, you can download the WinHelp decompiler to recreate the HPJ and RTF sources from the HLP file. Extract the files inside helpdc21.zip into a new folder. Then you can easily decompile any .hlp file from the command prompt, by typing: helpdeco helpfile.hlp where helpfile.hlp is the help file you want to decompile. The decompiler will generate the HPJ and RTF files, along with a series of bitmap files if the help file contains images. Use Project|Import Help Project in HelpScribble to import the help file.
That will extract the source files for the hlp file.
Lastly, simply import the resulting hpj file in HelpScribble. From there you can simply export to a html file with the option Make Flat Manual.
Boom. Done.
I am using a Custom Build Step to copy the built DLL (i.e. $(TargetPath)) of a C++ project to a different location on disk.
I've set the Output of the Custom Build Step to the destination DLL path, and Additional Dependencies to $(TargetPath) - the file I'm copying, in the hope that VS will then only run the step if the source DLL is newer than the target DLL.
However, each time I build the project, VS runs the custom build step - so it appears to be unable to tell that there's no need to perform the copy, (the source DLL $(TargetPath) hasn't changed). I must have the step configured incorrectly.
What settings will give me the behaviour that I want (i.e. - VS regards the project as up-to-date if it built and the custom build step was successful)?
In the VS Output Window I see this line which seems to imply that visual studio is taking the vcxproj as the file that triggers the build step. I want it to use $(TargetPath):
Input file "MyProject.vcxproj" is newer than output file "c:\custom\build\step\copies\the\dll\here.dll".
(PS: I should add, I was initially using a Post Build Step, but if this fails, VS regards the project as successfully built, and doesnt run it again when you Build a second time)
I think what you want is Incremental Building.
Here is a quick howto on it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171483.aspx
The basics are you need to supply an input to the target to so MSBuild can map the inputs to outputs and skip the target if the output is newer/same age as the input.
Make sure the timestamp of the output file you specified is updated after the copy command (in Unix you would use the touch command).
You may use this at the Command Line:
cd c:\custom\build\step\copies\the\dll <br>
copy /b /y YOUR_SOURCE_DIRECTORY/here.dll .<br>
copy /b /y here.dll+,,
I'm trying to get the compilation args for each compilation unit so I can create the "compilation_commands.json" for my vcxproj that can be used with clang's libTooling.
The libTooling tutorial suggests using a CompilationDatabase to provide the compilation args for all the cpp files in a project. The tutorial shows that CMake can generate the compilation_commands.json for CMake based projects.
Since clang can be put into "MSVC mode" via clang.exe --driver-mode=cl or clang-cl.exe my thought was if I could get the compilation args for each cpp file in my VS2012 project I can create the compilation_commands.json for a vcxproj.
However I'm having trouble finding APIs in the VS2012 SDK that walks a vcxproj and retrieves the compilation args for each compilation unit. Can someone point me towards the right APIs?
I know this is really old, but the question is still relevant, so for those still looking for an answer, I managed to finally do this recently using this little VS extension.
Just install it and a new 'Sourcetrail' menu will appear, with a 'Create Compilation Database' entry (I found Intellisense needs to be enabled for it to be clickable). That will let you customize what to include and generate a compile_commands.json that you can use with other clang-based tools, etc.
It is a DIY job. The VS IDE projects have properties for each .cpp file. By selecting a .cpp, then right-click -> Properties -> Config properties -> C/C++ -> Command-Line you have the options required to compile that specific file. The 64 dollar question is how to do it for every file in the project / solution. The answer is not trivial, but it is doable. At least I did it on VS 2010 and I'm pretty sure it works on VS 2012/3
The secret lies with what is called VCEngine. It is a tool that evaluates all the properties or the files in the project. So the real problem is how to evaluate the property "Command Line" for each file. You need to iterate through all the .cpp files and call VCProject's Evaluate method for the "Command Line" property.
The simplest way I think you can do it is to write a plugin for the VS IDE and thus gain access to the VCEngine instance. There are plenty of examples of how to do that. Be aware that the VCEngine is version dependent.
Anywhay, for projects/solutions with thousands of .cpp files, you need to automate the compilation database creation.
When I'll have time I will put the solution on github
You may be interested in reading this
compile_commands.json for Windows/MSVC
You can try to parse the CL.command.* files in the intermediate directories.
https://gist.github.com/Trass3r/f3fbe6807d28106e917368c33abf45d4
After automatically upgrading the project file for a .Net 4.0 web application to work with Visual Studio 2012 everything worked ok at first however when compiling I got lots of errors like this:
Description : Source File '..\..\..\..\..\File Path' could not be found
File : CSC
And when trying to build using MSBuild (passing just the project full path, with no additional parameters) in the "Developer Command Prompt for VS2012" I got basically the same errors:
"CSC : error CS2001: Source File 'x' could not be found"
All errors refer to Linked Files (aspx,cs,etc) located in other web applications projects located at a different deep in our code Branch (that's why all the '....\' at the beginning of the paths)
To me it looks like a problem with the file Length, I had the same problem a while ago when building the projects on our CI server using MSBuild, I was able to manage it by manipulating the project files before building them using a custom script without the need to move the branch around or reduce the deep of the projects, I didn't have to move anything, the important thing at the time it was that developers using Visual Studio 2010 could compile everything without problems. I learned by this that compiling/Building with MSBuild was different that with DevEnv/VS, and for example MSBuild didn't support building Setup projects and DevEnv did.
Since this is happening now with VS 2012/DevEnv 2012 , plus that VS 2012 doesn't support setup projects anymore (like msbuild), plus VS/DevEnv have the same problem with the file length, it looks like VS 2012 its finally using msbuild under the hood or are more tightly integrated, however I didn't find any article to confirm this.
Changing the branch structure/changing the deep of the projects it’s not an option right now due to several reasons (large code base, high number of projects, risk, timing, effort, etc.).
Does someone have an alternative solution or a fix for this issue in Visual Studio 2012?
Regards,
P.D.: BTW I already checked this post MSBuild error with linked files but like I said before changing the paths its not an option right now.
Try getting the Build Logs,
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/ms171470.aspx
it seems that csc task could not find the source file. One cause it you import the wrong file.
so you have to edit the project file via normal Text Editor.
I found a solution to this issue, when you linked the file, you relative path is recognized by msbuild and go back from there it become your path in a long path however you can change it in the project definition doing right click/unload the project/ and change the path from ../../../ to $(SolutionDir)/../.. until find the file to link, note: it's extend the character from 255 to 300 character.
Check that you have the latest version of the linked files from the other projects. Visual Studio will NOT automatically get them if they belong to another project.
Check that the linked paths are indeed correct. You can monitor what files VS.NET and MSBUILD are trying to access with the help of the SysInternals ProcMon tool (filter on process names and filter out all successes)
If you suspect that the path length is the problem (this will also be visible in the ProcMon tool), you can try to shorten them by linking to the absolute path (C:\X\Y\Z) instead of a relative path (......\Z). The location of the linked files can then remain unchanged.
My 2 cents to this problem... In my case, I had a file created in one project (i.e. ConfigModel) and I had a link to this file in another project but when I renamed the file ConfigModel in the first project to LoginModel for example, it didn't rename the link in the second project causing this error to occur.
I know that i did this question a while ago but for what is worth, The approach that we finally went for was:
Locating the files that were reported as too long.
Reduce the full path length of those files, by reducing the length of the name and/or
the length of the container folder or reducing the folder nesting
level. Therefore reducing the full path length.
Update the links of the changed files (re-linking) on the dependant projects.
This solved the problem with Visual Studio 2012 on developers workstations and on our CI/Deploy servers that used MSbuild.
For my scenario this approach was less risky,and implied less effort than moving complete projects/solutions to reduce their folder nesting level or reducing the folder names, and have to update all the references of the dependant project/solutions.
Ok, I hit this and solved it today. I found it by following a msdn tutorial (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms379563%28v=vs.80%29.aspx) and here's the command that broke for me:
csc /t:library /out:MyCodeLibrary.dll simpleType.cs
Giving me the message
error CS2001: Source file 't:librabry' could not be found
Which worked after changing the original command to the following:
csc /target:library /out:MyCodeLibrary.dll simpleType.cs
I'm not sure why the short version of the /target flag causes this error, but I've not found anywhere else online noting this cause specifically so I wanted to record it here.
This problem arose for me when I reverted to an earlier version of a git repository. Apparently I didn't add the project file to the repo so when it reverted it didn't revert the project file also. What I did to clear it up was to exclude the missing .cs file from the project by clicking on the missing file in the project Explorer. It was easy to find since it was marked with a warning triangle. Then rebuild the entire solution.
Verify whether the files mentioned in the error do not exist in the corresponding folder.
If their non-existence is intentional, edit the .csproj files and remove the reference for those files.
Build again.
I inherited this issue from a project somebody else was working on, in my case was a .cs file supposed to be generated by an Entity Framework .tt template, but for some reason it wasn't, so the compiler was going all CS2001 about that. I had to update the template and manually run it, everything worked after that.
I am developing a SharePoint 2013 solution using VS 2012, the solution has a licx file. I get a compile time error and a warning.
Error: The specified task executable "LC.exe" could not be run. The filename or extension is too long
Warning: The command-line for the "LC" task is too long. Command-lines longer than 32000 characters are likely to fail. Try reducing the length of the command-line by breaking down the call to "LC" into multiple calls with fewer parameters per call.
I have tried the lc.exe.config has <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true">
I also tried moving the solution to "C:\", was earlier in the Projects folder.
I am still unable to resolve this error.
There is MS Support workaround:
when you build the project , delete the Licence file from the project
everytime you get this error , just delete the licence file
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/779433/lc-exe-task-command-line-too-long
You will be able to save a lot on the path length by making a shortcut to the specific .NET version you use (in this case 4.5.2). Here are the steps;
run command line as Administator
Go to C:\ in command line
mklink /J net452 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\.NETFramework\v4.5.2"
Go to VisualStudio
Open project properties
Look into References tab
Click on "Reference paths" button and add path "C:\net452"
Rebuild project
Deleting licenses.licx file is not a solution. It will give you error at runtime if you are using third party control which need licenses.
LC.exe takes argument as licenses file with full path, if argument is too long, it throw error.
So keep the file name and path shorter length, it will compile and work.
Deleting licence file did not help me. I end up deleting the "licenses.licx" under the Solution Explorer -> Properties group
Surly that helps
This issue is fixed in VS2017 as per this GitHub checkin: https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/commit/e49717c727c3cab4db466bcb0a5abb624a8156bb
I believe the version is full release version is VS2017 Update 2.