July 2007 - Posts

Deploying a Client/Server application using MSI and ClickOnce

This article at CodeProject explains in detail how to deploy a web service project. It uses a combination of Visual Studio and Orca to build an MSI setup for the server part. A SQL Server database is also installed with this project. For the client side a ClickOnce setup is created, also with Visual Studio. Nice article, with code snippets and illustrating screen shots.

WSE 3 Deployment: MSI and ClickOnce

German: dotnetpro Schwerpunkt-Heft Setup & Deployment

(This article is only available in German)

Im aktuellen Heft 08/2007 der Zeitschrift dornetpro dreht sich alles um die Software-Installation. Insgesamt zehn Artikel zu Themen wie ClickOnce, Installationsprogramme mit Visual Studio, InnoSetup und Nullsoft Scriptable Install System sind im Heft zu finden.

Einer der Artikel ist kostenlos online verfügbar, alle anderen gibt's nur für Abonennten - dotnetpro ist nicht am Kiosk erhältlich.

Es gibt ein kostenloses Zwei-Monats-Probeabo, leider beginnt es aber erst mit dem nächsten Heft. Als Abonnent kann man jedoch alle bisherigen Ausgaben online abrufen und so an die Deployment-Artikel gelangen. Wer sich gleich zu einem Vollabo entschließt, kann Heft 08/2007 kostenlos vom Verlag anfordern (Kontakt über mich).

Advanced Installer 5.1 Released

On July 12th, 2007 Caphyon LLC released a new version of their Windows Installer authoring tool, Advanced Installer. The 5.1 version adds support for sequencing patches, specifying custom connection strings for running SQL scripts, configuring different install parameters per each build and the ability to permit selecting the language when installing multi-language packages.

The Repackager gets improved scanning filters, support for applications requiring reboot, snapshot diff export and comparison. An option to wait for other operations before continuing was added, allowing repackaging multiple installs into a single one.

Two major new time-saving enhancements are searching and editing multiple components and features at the same time and the ability to recognize hard-coded paths and replace them with Windows Installer properties when importing from Registry or INI files.

Caphyon Website

You can order Advanced Installer via InstallSite

Posted by stefan | with no comments

New AdminStudio 8.5 supports Citrix Virtualization

Macrovision Corp. today released a new version of AdminStudio, their solution for packaging, customization and testing software for deployment. AdminStudio 8.5 now includes the latest version of InstallShield 2008 as Editor, which includes improved Windows Vista support and other enhancements.

The Enterprise Edition of AdminStudio 8.5 also supports Citrix Application Virtualization. It can convert MSIs to Citrix virtual profiles and can also repackage legacy applications into Citrix virtual profiles without using snapshots.

What's new in AdminStudio 8.5 

AdminStudio 8.5 is available in the InstallSite Shop

Tool to fix MSI validation errors automatically

One step to make sure your Windows Installer setup will work properly is to perform validation of the .msi file. Microsoft has published a collection of ICEs (internal consistency evaluators) for this purpose, and third party tools vendors provide additional ICEs. You could even create your own.

When those ICEs are executed, they scan the MSI database for entries in database records that are inconsitent and might cause incorrect behavior in the context of the whole database. In some cases they also try to predict unintended behaviour and issue hints for improvements. 

ICEworks from ZettaServe is a tool that claims to correct Micrososoft ICE error and warning messages in an .msi file automatically. It can either modify the .msi file directly, or write the modification to a transform file (.mst). ZettaServe is an Australian IT company that also offers software packaging services. ICEworks was created to compliment their internal packaging process.

ICEworks is currently in beta, registration is open until 10th July 17th August (Edit 9th July: beta registration period extended). The licensing model has not been announced yet.

ICEworks website

How to trigger UAC elevation from a script

If you need to run command with full administrator permissions in Windows Vista, you could use the elevated command prompt (by right-clicking the command prompt icon in the start menu and selection "run as administrator). However if you need to do this from a batch or script file you have to use a trick, as described in these two articles:

Note that these scripts will trigger the UAC dialog and the user must click "proceed". Thats by design to keep it secure.

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