Microsoft's vexing dumping of vdproj install projects in VS 2012 leads one to try Installshield LE which is sort of built into VS2012. Sadly, it creates installers that do not work in any way shape or form with 64 bit.
So for instance clicking the Office 2010 installed checkbox only makes a prerequisite for 32 bit Office. It fails to detect 64 bit.
After a lot of chickenless head exploration of Installshield the bottom line is:
1) You need the Professional or Premiere version in order to deal with 64 bit.
2) You need to edit their provided condition to make a compound one that ORs all the guids of Office that you are interested in together as it only checks for one of the many out of the box. This details the structure of the GUIDS: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2186281?wa=wsignin1.0. I found it helpful to install various versions in a VM and then using regedit to see what the GUID ends up being.
This post is so that someone can actually discover this with a Google search, instead of it being hidden behind a paywall / private support site.
Update October '13 AlBear
There is a beta version of installshield LE for VS2012/13
To build x64 installation packages check on the help files
Look for "64 Bit" .
The way InstallShiel LE recognizes x64 target is by either defining the [INSTALLDIR] property as one of the 64 bit Folder or by defining at least one of the setup components as 64 Bit.
This works as I built an Excel 2013 Add that loads at startup and works fine.
For the Prerequisite for VSTO to work: You need to change file size and hash a it looks like the recommendations from Microsoft article "Deploying Office solutions vsto 2013" are outdated and the XML code recommended has the wrong file size and hash. Not too difficult to fix. However I think that Microsoft is unfortunately going through a period of crisis and this failure to provide reasonable support is uncharted territory .......
Cheers
InstallShield and WiX is like Visual Studio using VB.NET and SharpDevelop using C#. Just as those tools both create EXE's and DLL's using IL code but different language providers,
InstallShield and WiX both create Windows Installer databases using different languages. Just as a VB EXE can consume a C# DLL, an InstallShield MSI can consume a WiX Merge Modules. This gives you the best of both worlds.
The thing to understand is a VSTO AddIn installer isn't a 64bit MSI, it's a 32bit MSI that deploys an AnyCPU DLL with registry entries for either 32bit or 64bit Office. It's the bitness of Office, ultimately, that determines the bitness of your AddIn.
I have a template that I've used for a dozen customers. It uses InstallShield Limited Edition and it's Preq Bootstrapper to lay down all the dependencies and consumes a merge module authored is WiX and IsWiX (CodePlex). Otherwise ISLE is just a container for the UI and it's one feature.
The merge module takes care of all the dependency detection, gating logic, laying down files, installing certificates, setting registry values and so on.
Some more details can be found at:
VSTO 4 ( 2010 ) Lessons Learned
Office 2010 Bitness Pain
Apparently the small print referenced here should have been one clue: Does InstallShield Limited Edition Support 64 bit Installer?
The current Office prerequisite in Installshield is also misleadingly worded. It should really be "Office 2010 Home & Professional 32 bit".
Perhaps they intend to upgrade it over time to be comprehensive or perhaps everyone has to go through the same hassle to fix it for a few cases they care about. The support guy claimed there are too many GUIDS for all the combinations of versions, bitness, releases etc.
Home & Student, Home & Professional, Professional, Office 2010 Professional Plus License
32bit, 64bit, Languages mangled in there, Service Packs, etc. Depending on the set you care about the number of GUIDS is rather large.
Related
I have a couple of Projects created in visual basic 6 with oracle databases. I want to upgrade these proejects to visual studio 2012 and use TFS version control. I have read that first I need to upgrade to Visual studio 2008 and then to Visual studio 2012.
Before going ahead with the upgrade ( I need to install Visual studio 2008 as well) I want to make sure this is a realistic approach. So
1. Does converting a vb6 project to VS 2012 ok or I will have to make a lot of changes to make things work?
2. After upgradation would I be able to use TFS for the projects?
TL;DR - yes, you'll need to make lots of changes regardless of how you choose to migrate. TFS question seems irrelevant to me. If you're setup to use TFS for projects, you can use it for these after upgrade as well.
The only reason to consider a 2-step upgrade that includes VS 2008 is that was the last version that included the migration tool built-in (ie, free). As others alluded to, those tools don't make pretty code but a mashup of VB6 and .Net. After trying a few times, I now personally find it simpler and more robust to recreate a new .Net version from scratch, but using the VB6 code as a template. I copy and paste as practical and then do Find/Replace to catch the majority of errors/warnings and then deal with all the others individually. If I have to convert another project, I may use 2008 once just to see what kind of issues the original code had or if there are any unusual situations/controls I'll need to deal with, but I would still start a new 2013 project from scratch. That gives me a better opportunity to improve it as well. You'd be replacing all the connecting code to Oracle anyway. I'd been using OO4O and moved to ODP.NET. If you used 2008, you would have to move to at least 2010 to use the latter in managed mode, which is great not having to load Oracle Client on each machine.
I'd be wary of upgrading VB 6 to VB.net using the automated tools. I did it back in the day (around 2003) when .net was just starting out and my memory is that it wasn't a pleasant experience.
The code produced by the upgrade wizard is a nasty mix of old VB conventions trim, instr and .net conventions. We also had a bunch of weird bugs. Sorry it was a long time ago and I can't remember any details. Only that we did it once for a small number of components, around 6 or 7 activex dll's. That experience was bad enough that we decided it wasn't worth the pain.
We kept the VB 6 code in service until it was re-written as part of a larger push to modernise the codebase.
If you do decide to upgrade then the output is a standard visual studio project that can be source controlled in TFS just like any .net project.
If you reason for upgrading to just to use TFS then take a look at the MSSCCIProvider. This allows you at hook TFS in to the VB6 IDE
I am doing something very similar and did develop a tool to assist with the designer portion of the conversion. It parsers the VB6 file and creates designer code for .NET.
The source is here.
https://github.com/rdejournett/VBtoNET
The only thing I was not able to solve is that controls within tab pages have really wierd X locations like -60000. So I parse those to 0. You'll have to move them to the right place.
According to Microsoft Visual Studio will no longer support setup projects, requiring instead that developers download and register for a light version of InstallShield.
Does anyone know if there are alternatives out there - WiX comes to mind but in a way this is like going assembly...
Wix. it is not like assembly, it wrocks - especially compared to installshield.
Otherwise no - before Wix came around installers where a bad area to be in anyway. Only buggy products, choose your pain between Installshield and Wise installer (now Symantec Altiris).
I prefer Wix any day over the other stuff.
Thanks in advance...
I have a solution in vc++ and it is working fine. I need to create this as a program that can be installed. Also need to create a start menu folder and a desktop icon. What are the steps to create this?
Use an install builder. There's several (free) ones around on the web that you can search for.
Personally, I recommend InnoSetup by Jordan Russel. It's free, nice, easy to use, and very rich in features : (quoting from website)
Support for all versions of Windows in use today: 7, 2008 R2, Vista,
XP, 2008, 2003, 2000, Me, 98, 95, and NT 4.0. (No service packs are
required.) Extensive support for installation of 64-bit applications
on the 64-bit editions of Windows. Both the x64 and Itanium
architectures are supported. (On the Itanium architecture, Service
Pack 1 or later is required on Windows Server 2003 to install in
64-bit mode.)
Supports creation of a single EXE to install your
program for easy online distribution. Disk spanning is also supported.
Standard Windows 2000/XP-style wizard interface.
Customizable setup types, e.g. Full, Minimal, Custom.
Complete uninstall capabilities.
Installation of files: Includes integrated support for "deflate",
bzip2, and 7-Zip LZMA/LZMA2 file compression. The installer has the
ability to compare file version info, replace in-use files, use shared
file counting, register DLL/OCX's and type libraries, and install
fonts.
Creation of shortcuts anywhere, including in the Start Menu and
on the desktop.
Creation of registry and .INI entries. Running other
programs before, during or after install.
Support for multilingual
installs, including right-to-left language support.
Support for passworded and encrypted installs.
Support for digitally signed
installs and uninstalls.
Silent install and uninstall.
Unicode installs. (Windows 2000/XP or later)
Integrated preprocessor option
for advanced compile-time customization.
Integrated Pascal scripting
engine option for advanced run-time install and uninstall
customization.
Full source code is available (Borland Delphi 2.0-5.0
and 2009).
I would learn Wix if I were you. The current tutorial at http://wix.tramontana.co.hu/ will help you quickly implement the setup for your application. Also, this will be a good investment in knowledge and it will allow you to implement more complex setup applications in the future.
It seems if you try to reference the Office COM objects (as you would do in other development environments), Visual Studio gets it wrong - and it just won't work.
So you must use the converted type library that Microsoft hand-converted and makes available for download, and download, and download.
Now it seems that in order for my application to run it needs the Office Interop code, which is contained in an assembly.
Now i don't want to force my customers to install the Office 2007 Primary Interop Assemblies, Office 2003 Primary Interop Assemblies or the Office XP Primary Interop Assemblies. i want an xcopy deployment.
If i manage to get a hold of Microsoft's copy of the interop assemblies, can i just copy them to by Bin/Debug and Bin/Release folders?
If i include the Office 2007 interop assemblies, will it work if the customer has Office 95 installed, or do i have to include all versions of the Office Interop dll's Microsoft has ever published?
This is a common question with a rather complicated answer. Mary Lee of MSFT is a great resource for information about this:
http://blogs.msdn.com/vsto/archive/tags/Deployment/default.aspx
Using ClickOnce to deploy is the closest you are going to get to an XCopy install of any application built on VSTO.
Also, check this post:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsto/thread/1666d2b0-a4d0-41e8-ad86-5eab3542de1e/
Finally, Misha has a great blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/mshneer/archive/2006/01/05/deployment-articles.aspx
The PIAs are specific to the version of Office you are targeting, so the 2003 PIAs are necessary for targeting 2003 and the 2007 PIAs are necessary for 2007. Automating Office 95 via managed code is something I have not done before, but I can imagine you are directly referencing the type libraries so a RCW is generated for you and has nothing to do with PIAs.
HTH
Colby Africa (MSFT)
From my own experience:
If you wanted to target Office 2003 and above, then you'd use the Office 2003 PIAs - and limit yourself to the Office 2003 API. The code would run on Office 2003 or later. You could still call Office 2007 functions using reflection, but that's not pleasant.
I imagine it's much the same story if your baseline version is Office 2000 - though I've not tried it, and I believe the earliest version for which Microsoft themselves provide PIAs is Office 2002 (XP).
You can create your own Interop assemblies for 2000, and I've no reason to believe that you can't do it for '95, though you're the first person I've ever seen ask for '95 support! It goes without saying that if you create your own Interop assemblies you'll need to deploy them with your application.
In any case, you want to use the highest Office version you can get away with as your baseline, so that you can support as many features as you can without resorting to reflection. You should develop your code on a machine which has only that version of Office installed.
In my case, I develop for Office 2003 and know that my users also have 2003. So, I ask them to ensure that they have the ".NET Programmability Support" feature enabled (which you can do via Office 2003 Setup via Add/Remove Programs if you choose the Change option). That option basically installs the PIAs to the GAC. For those users that can't do this, my setup program detects the lack of the PIAs and installs them prior to installing my application (as it does for the .NET framework).
XCOPY deployment? Yes, I'd like that too - but forget it. For one thing, if your add-in is going to work in 'high' security mode, then you're going to need a code-signed COM 'shim' to sit between your code and Office, and that needs to be registered. I believe VSTO provides its own shim, if you choose to go down that path (I didn't, since I needed to be able to 'drive' Office from scratch rather than relying on the user to start the application).
Deployment - and dealing with the installation & security issues - is one of the hardest parts of Office Add-in development with .NET, and it's a real kicker that it comes right at the end when you thought you were done.
My strong advice is to save yourself days and weeks of hassle, and look at Add-in Express. I've only recently come across this myself, and have been kicking myself ever since because it could have saved me so much time. It has several benefits that I think would be useful to you:
It allows you to create a single add-in targetting Office 2000 to Office 2007 (sorry, not '95), regardless of what version you happen to have on your development PC.
It creates an installer for you (which even works on Vista!), which in itself is worth the price.
It comes with its own COM shim, and is integrated to the extent that you don't need to worry about it.
It will allow you to have a single add-in that has a menu/toolbar interface in Office versions up to 2003, but a ribbon interface in 2007.
Note that I have no affiliation with Add-in Express (other than as a recent customer), but equally I've not yet converted my projects over to using it. The initial tests that I have done lead me to believe it's pretty good - and definitely the way to go for small to medium projects.
If i manage to get a hold of Microsoft's copy of the interop assemblies, can i just copy them to by Bin/Debug and Bin/Release folders?
It worked for me. When I compiled the program I had it reference the interop (PIA) dlls in the bin and then deployed it that way to the customer.
If i include the Office 2007 interop assemblies, will it work if the customer has Office 95 installed?
No, you mst have the interop dlls for the version of Word you are targeting. I suppose it might be possible to write your code so that it chcks the version of word running on that machine and at runtime chooses the correct interop, but you need to include them all.
The VSTO bit I understand. Visual Studio has the project templates to get you started with creating nice .NET based add-ins.
But where is VSTA? I installed the SDK but it seems to be gears towards adding extensibility to your own applications.
I had thought that VSTA was like the new VBA for Office 2007. Infopath 2007 seems to be VSTA enabled but I cannot seem to find where Excel 2007 is also VSTA enabled.
Am I missing something ?
As I understand it, VSTA is not a 'new VBA' nor built into Office 2007, but a separate 'Super-VBA with .NET' that must be licensed from Summit, and distributed as part of an external application. I think it's just targeted at ISVs wishing to extend Office, but the blurb about it also contains this gem:
Perhaps the feature most applauded by enterprise BDMs and SI’s is that VSTA customizations are seamlessly opened by any version of Visual Studio enabling professional developers to continue to enhance applications originally created by end user developers – a feature requested by many enterprises because applications often grow in sophistication over time.
I've not bothered googling BDMs and SI means le Système International d'Unités to me, but I took this mean that you can take the horrible mess of excel VBA that your traders used to turn worthless morgages into goldmine CDOs (and then bailouts), and your 'real developers' can open it in Visual Studio and sort the mess out (or just quit...).
also VBA and VSTA can exist together:
http://blogs.msdn.com/vsta/archive/2006/07/31/684514.aspx
If I understand correctly, VSTA is a new technology that provides a "standard" short-cut route to extensibility for application vendors. So it may appear in Office apps in the future or it may not, but it's not there now.
If it becomes supported by Excel, Word and the like, then the UI (Visual Studio Shell?) should be distributed as part of the package.
But I may be miles off-base...
VSTO 2005 is available to install by itself as a complete development environment
Read more here...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/54ds2za4(v=vs.80).aspx