What installer options are there for Visual Studio 2012 Express for Desktop - visual-studio-2012

So Microsoft released Visual Studio 2012 Express for desktop apps. That's great, but how does one create an installer for open source apps that are built in Visual Studio Express? There are no installer templates available by default, and they have disabled browsing the online gallery. Sure, I could purchase something like InstallShield, but that kind of defeats the purpose of an open source application if you ask me. Any suggestions?

You can use the open source NSIS or WiX tools to create fairly nice installers.
Since both should work without the Visual Studio integration that Express won't give you, they should both be usable (even if not quite as nicely) without problems.

I would use Inno Setup, which is a little easier to learn than most other setup programs.
I have a link here:
http://www.jrsoftware.org/ishelp/

Related

How can I create installer with .net

I have a game written in MonoGame in VS2012. How can I create setup file witch will also install .net framework if user doesn't have it?
There are no setup projects in VS 2012, unless you get the InstallShield LE add-in. VS 2010 had setup projects; VS 2013 supports the return of installer projects as an add-in. Therefore you may be stuck looking for a 3rd party solution, like InstallShield LE or any other number of other tools that can build setups and have a VS IDE add-in support (such as WiX). List of tools here:
http://www.installsite.org/pages/en/msi/authoring.htm
If you are keen on VS setup projects and want a simple tool that does the basics without you needing to learn too much, moving to VS 2013 and using the installer projects add-in would probably suit you.
https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/9abe329c-9bba-44a1-be59-0fbf6151054d

Create a setup file in Visual Studio 2012

I have a windows form project and I want to create an installation package for this project. How can I create a setup file in Visual Studio 2012 ? My project is without data base.
How to create a Setup package using Visual Studio 2012.NET?
Microsoft released the Visual Studio Installer Project extension in April of this year, the catch is it's for VS2013, not VS2012.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2014/04/17/visual-studio-installer-projects-extension.aspx
The 'lite' InstallShield option remains in VS if you need something with more flexibility.
Advanced Installer also has a free version that includes an extension for VS. This is a commercial tool but the extension is included in the free edition as I said, for more advanced features you need to purchase a Professional or higher licenses and edit the project direct from Advanced Installer GUI, not from VS. (but you can still use the project in the VS solution, so you get the MSI built at the end of your build process)
Visual Studio setup projects (vdproj) are not supplied with VS 2012
There are several solutions for you:
You could use InstallShield instead.
If you don't want or
can't use InstallShield for any reason, you could try WiX. This
toolset builds Windows installation packages from XML source code.
If you only use Windows Presentation Foundation (.xbap), Windows Forms (.exe), console application (.exe), or Office solution (.dll) you could look at ClickOnce. To use this you should right click on the project file in the solution explorer and select "Publish" from the pop-up menu.
Alternatively you can use previous version of Visual Studio (2010).

How to use PhoneGap with Visual Studio

I'm having trouble getting started with PhoneGap on windows 8, VS 2012, namely:
I don't know how to install the templates
I open the template projects I've downloaded from PhoneGap, but they are in compatible with VS2012
I don't know where to start in respect to creating my first simple CRUD application
I want to connect to a WCF API and make some calls
How to publish the result allowing installation on many devices:
I mainly want to use iPhone and Android devices
How do I get started with PhoneGap?
#Smithy, Microsoft just made it possible to develop Cordova apps with Visual Studio 2013 Update 2.
Its just a preview as far as I understand, but go have a look.
If you have the latest version of Visual Studio installed, you need to go to Microsoft'd download page and download the installer:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42675
This comes along with documentation on how to get started and how to install and set it up in VS 2013.
Good luck.
UPDATE:
With the release of Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition along with Update 4, MS has made it easier than ever to create Cordova project....and best thing of all is it's FREE!!!!
Benefit is that if your used to VS like me, this is a comfortable environment, and its super easy to get started.
To get access to these templates, follow the steps when creating a new project in VS, and you will be prompted to install additional software, including but not limited to SDK Manager, adt, iTunes, emulators etc..
After these are installed, it is now simple to create projects, edit and run them in the included RIPPLE emulator.
These projects can also in addition be deployed to your device from VS.
To check if your device is picked up on your PC, open a cmd and run "adb devices" to see if your device is picked up on your PC and a list of connected devices.
Easy, effective and it works. From, see link on terms of use and limitations in organisations: Free Dev Tools
Download link here: http://www.visualstudio.com/en-gb/products/free-developer-offers-vs
Q: Who can use Visual Studio Community?
A: Here’s how individual developers can use Visual Studio Community:
Any individual developer can use Visual Studio Community to create their own free or paid apps.
Here’s how Visual Studio Community can be used in organizations:
An unlimited number of users within an organization can use Visual Studio Community for the following scenarios: in a classroom learning environment, for academic research, or for contributing to open source projects.
For all other usage scenarios: In non-enterprise organizations, up to 5 users can use Visual Studio Community. In enterprise organizations (meaning those with >250 PCs or > $1 Million US Dollars in annual revenue), no use is permitted beyond the open source, academic research, and classroom learning environment scenarios described above.
Thanks Microsoft!
You can use VS to edit the html, css, and javascript files, but I don't believe there are any VS project templates available. At least I've never seen any.
But, you won't be able to compile and deploy. The templates for Android for instance are eclipse project templates since phonegap is building a java application in order to deploy to android.
If you want to develop for android, follow the getting started guide from Phonegap ( I can't get you a link right now due to firewall issues). The files you put in the www folder will be the html, css, and javascript files for your project and you can use anything you want to edit them, including VS.
You can create PhoneGap application using
Cordova vs plugin
Telerik App Builder
vsnomad
for more information please see the below link
http://sourcefreeze.com/cross-platform/visual-studio-cordova-plugins-for-cross-platform-mobile-apps/
You may also want to refer to this post that describes how to use Phonegap projects in the new Multi-Device Hybrid Apps that uses Cordova integration in VS - https://stackoverflow.com/a/23621633/1277291
RedGate has a product called Nomad which integrates beautifully with Visual Studio 2013.
It makes use of the PhoneGap Build cloud service. With this approach you don't need all the platform SDK's on your system. Works very well.
See this video. Unfortunately RedGate recently stopped supporting Nomad. I'm hoping Microsoft's new offering will offer similar capability.

IPP and Visual Studio 2012

I've been trying to get the .NET Dev Kit and Azure SDK to work with Visual Studio 2012 and am not having much luck. What am I missing?
The Azure SDK installation instructions don't work on VS 2012. When I search for anything Intuit-related from the VS Extension Manager, nothing comes up.
I tried installing from the VS Gallery but then there's no Intuit Anywhere menu in VS as shown in the VS 2010 screen shot. (These instructions are highly suspect, since Intuit has moved away from the "Intuit Anywhere" name. But given that the developer site was overhauled recently I would expect the instructions to be up to date.)
Is there an easy way to get this to work with VS 2012, or am I wasting my time? Am I better off just building everything from scratch? (We have done that in another project, just not with Azure.)
The Plugin for Visual Studio has not been updated for Visual Studio 2012, the last supported version is 2010.
The code that the plugin generates is available as templates and sample code as well.
It includes the Oauth grant and handler pages, as well as the OpenId handlers.
regards,
Jarred

visual studio 2012 web and desktop

I have visual studio 2012 express for web, now I need to make a desktop app, need I to download visual studio 2012 express for desktop or is there any addon I can install on web edition?
thanks
You can create Class Library projects in the web edition of Visual Studio Express, change the Output Type in the project properties to Console Application or Windows Application, add any library references you'd need (particularly for the Windows application, as none of the forms stuff will be included by default), and go from there.
This works well for console applications, but I imagine you're going to run into issues with Windows applications. The project templates are nonexistent, so you're on your own for setting things up from scratch. The forms designer probably isn't there, or if it is probably won't work as expected. And this won't work at all for Windows Store applications.
It's a lot easier to just download both editions and run them both. I've been running Web, Desktop, Windows 8, and Database editions side-by-side for a while now without problems.
need I to download visual studio 2012 express for desktop
Yes, you do.
That's part of the limitation of express editions.

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