Deployment : My first attempt .... 1

[StevenK]

I've been developing in C# for a number of months now with some varying degree of success.
My leap of faith now is attempting to create a deployment application such that I can install and run a test application on client machines.
I've developed the test application on a Windows 2000 machine and am looking at installing it on Windows 2000 clients.
I've followed the instructions in the Visual Studio .NET documentation files but can only create a 'Setup' project that attempts in install the 'exe' file alone.
When I run this 'Setup.exe' on my development machine all goes well with me being able to then run the application and uninstall it.
However if I run the same 'Setup.exe' on another client machine (non-development) I get errors indicating that I need the .NET runtime files installed on the machine.
How can I create a 'Setup' file that incorporates all the files as required with my application ?
This needs to include whatever .NET files that it may make use of, along with database access stuff ?
Can anyone point me in the right direction with things ?
I know this is probably simple to do but can't seem to get my head around it.
Thanks in advance
Regards
Steve

 

[RiverGuy]

I've seen other posts on here to include the .Net framework. Although I don't use it and run it as a separate install. There's been a few posts on here about it, should come up in the search. You might try right-clicking dotnetfxredist_x86..... and unchecking 'exclude'. That might work.

If you are using Crystal Reports, you will need to include files for those, along with the registration key for CR.

Some merge modules you might need are DataBase_Access.msm, DataBase_Access_enu.msm, regwiz.msm (if using CR).

 

[StevenK]

If I uncheck the 'Exclude' the 'dotnetfxredist_x86_enu.msm' I get the 'ERROR : dotNETRedist_x86_enu.msm must not be used to redistribute the .NET Framework. Please exclude this merge module.'

Can anyone suggest what I can do to ensure that I get all the required dll's (allowing for database, crystal reports access and the like) rather than running the chance of missing some if I add them all separately.
It's not that large / complex an application but I want to play it safe.

Any further help would be appreciated,
Steve

 

[RiverGuy]

Yeah Steve, that's what I was talking about. MS doesn't want that thing included in their deployment projects. Possibly because in many cases, it will bloat the installation file size immensely.

Check this thread. Zarcom has written an FAQ on it

thread796-429863 found which merge modules to add on Crystal's website. I don't have it bookmarked, but I printed it out. As far as I know, its not going to pick them up with the wizard, as it didn't for me.

 

[RiverGuy]

Last post was messed up. As I was saying, even with a setup wizard, I had to include the merge modules separately, which I found at Crystal's site.

 

[RiverGuy]

http://support.crystaldecisions.com/communityCS/TechnicalPapers/crnet_deployment.pdf

IS the link to add merge modules to use Crystal Reports.

 

[StevenK]

Thanks for the advice so far.
It's not so much the Crystal Reports related files I'm concerned about - the target machine has Crystal Reports on it so this side of things should be looked after for me before I start.
It's more a case of when I run the 'Setup.exe' for a simple application (label and a button on a form) on a client machine without Visual Studio .NET installed on it I get the error message :
"This setup requires the .NET framework.
Please install the .NET framework and run this setup again.'

I've now downloaded the .NET redistributable - is this all that needs to be installed on the client machine ?

Further pointers / help would be gratefully recieved.

Thanks again,
Steve

 

[RiverGuy]

More or less just the framework. For an app with just a label and button, then only the framework is needed.

 

[StevenK]

RiverGuy - thanks for the help so far.
I've now got the simple label / button program working on a client machine following the installation of the .NET redistributable.
My real application actually uses SQL Server (which will be installed on the client target machine) and Crystal Reports (again installed on the client target machine).
Will I need to install anything or will these things being installed previously omit the need to do anything more ?
Thanks again.
Steve

 

[RiverGuy]

I am not sure on that Steve. You might need those database merge modules to have it deploy correctly. I would assume though that regardless of those merge modules, you might have to install MDAC on those machines if they do not have it at all. But I would also assume that the wizard would do a halfway decent job of picking additional components to install when you are working with just Microsoft Framework components. I couldn't be sure though.