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When moving apps, Always use the "Package and Deployment Wizard". 3

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GZook

Programmer
Apr 14, 2003
42
US
When delivering an application to a client's site, just copying the app's EXE file will NOT work. You need to create an Installation Setup Package.

I learned this the hard way. I took a copy of the exe to the client's site, ran it, and got "Runtime Error '713' 'Application Defined or Object Defined Error'.

I didn't know what the problem was because, as is always the case, it worked at my office.

Then I read Hairbrained's post under the thread "Connection on Data Environment Disappear on another computer". It mentioned a Package and Deployment Wizard. As soon as I saw that, I thought BINGO! That's it!

This wizard is something programmers new to Visual Basic, like myself, might not know about because it initialy does not appear anywhere on the VB menu system. You have to set it up.

After the setup, creating the Installation package was a piece of cake!

I'm still not sure that was the entire problem because I still have to reinstall it on site, but I now know I was missing a lot of necessary files.

To set up the "Package and Deployment Wizard", and the other Add Ins menu options here's what you have to do.

Under "Add Ins" select the "Add Ins Manager". This menu option allows you to select the other options to be included on the Add Ins menu. There are about 10 options that otherwise do not appear on the menu until they are selected and set up properly.

Go through the entire list. For each item in the list, under the "Load Behaviors" section, select the top two check boxes, "Loaded/Unloaded" and "Load at Startup".

After all are set up, click the OK button.

Restart VB, Load your project, then go to the Add Ins menu and select the Package and deployment Wizard. It's pretty straitforward from there.
 
Oops, I forgot something very important. User Hairbrain deserves most of the credit for this post, as it was his post in the other thread that inspired me to create this topic.
 
You make it all sound like a "Piece of Cake". Thats how it should be but it won't put my application on an NT machine, as it won't force a reboot and instal files that are normally in use during bootup. One should read about other installation products people have used to overcome the weakness of the PDW. Wish it was a piece of cake. Plenty of postings on this site.
 
Zor,

Sorry to hear that it's not as easy as I thought it would be. I should've waited until I actually tried to install it before opening my mouth.

You've got me intrigued.

Could you, or others, mention some of those other installation products here, so people reading this thread will have some ideas?

I do want this thread to be as correct as possible.

The whole Visual Basic experience is quite new to me. I come from 17 years of experience as a programmer of the various versions of xBase from dBase II (in '85) through to Visual FoxPro 6. I'm learning VB by drawing on my FoxPro experience, from others here at work, and by posting questions on the web.
 
Hi Gzook,

I wasn't trying to be damaging in any way, and certainly no expert. Tek Tips people are very friendly and helpful, always there when you need them. But if you do a search on the site, you will see there are lots of fun and games packaging and installing. I think it's the worst part of the operation, as if writing the programme is not fraught enough. If it was not for others, I'd have been in the funny farm a long time ago. All the best
 
A search on this forum for 'installer' will yield lots of answers including:

Inno from :

Microsoft Installer (start from here):


________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

'People who live in windowed environments shouldn't cast pointers.'
 
I have never used Inno, but MS Visual Installer is pretty damn cool. I used to use the package and deployment tool, but found it could be a bit of a pain sometimes. Visual Installer was pretty easy to pick up and start using.
 
Zor,

'Sallright![bigsmile]

Johnwm and DirectDrive,

Great, Thank you very much. I'll look into these.[2thumbsup]
 
Hmm, Seems you can't give a star to a particular post. The star appears in all posts for that user.

Ok, The posts I was trying to highlight are:

1. Zor's informative post about the drawbacks of PDW.
2 & 3. Johnwm and DirectDrives Product info posts.

All very helpful![2thumbsup]
 
Question:

Is the MicroSoft Visual Studio Installer located on the Visual Studio 6 Installation CD Roms, or does it have to be purchased separately ?

 
Free download from MS - see my earlier post!


________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

'People who live in windowed environments shouldn't cast pointers.'
 
Hi all,

After I read this thread yesterday from GZook suggestion, I ran the Package and Deployment wizard and everything went fine. It created a package for me including cabs and exe. The wizard asked many couple questions about how your design would come out. That's it.

I run WinXP pro, not NT so..

I just wanted to share my successful attempt. :)
 
Vizion,

That's great. I believe Zor's post was just to make people aware that it doesn't work in all situations. See my Question thread: "Package and Deployment Wizard Question" for my specific situation.

Johnwm,

I'm looking at the MicroSoft Download Center site which I found by Searching for "Downloads" from the link in Johnwm's original post.

Just to let people know what's available:

In the Download Center, I found two links to Windows Installer 2.0: One for '95, '98 & ME; the other for NT4 & 2000.

On the Download Center's search I entered "Visual Studio Installer" which gave me many unrelated links, but also two Visual Studio Installer links, easily found by searching by Title: Visual Studio 6.0 Installer, and Visual Studio Installer 1.0. I'm thinkin' it's the 6.0 that I want.
 
Update: Just tried the link for Visual Studio 6.0 Installer (which had the newer date) but got the ol "This page cannot be found" message. Guess I'll have to try again later.
 
The PDW blows. Everytime I use it I have to go open up SETUP.LST in notepad and manually change certain lines in the BOOTSTRAP and SETUP sections of the file, normally relating to DLLSelfRegister and TLBRegister.

This has been a problem with the PDW since VB6 first came out (maybe even in VB5) and no Service Pack has ever fixed it even though you can find the errors listed in the MS Knowlegde Base so you know MS is aware of it. There are several excellent threads in this forum that address the issues and solutions to the problem.

I downloaded the VISUAL INSTALLER months ago and loaded it but, alas, have never used it yet. It has to be an improvement on PDW though.

 
The link for VS 6.0 Installer is still giving "The page cannot be displayed" Same for the older VS Installer 1.0 link.
 
GZook: it may be worth referencing the other threads you have started on this subject for people who are looking at this thread in the future.

thread222-538233
thread222-538363

[rockband]

If somethings hard to do, its not worth doing - Homer Simpson
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A General Guide To Excel in VB FAQ222-3383
File Formats Galore @
 
Ive just gone round and round from Johnwm's link to MS, and found plenty of things to look at regarding Visual Studio Installer, but nothing leading to DOWNLOAD. Anyone else got anywhere towards a download?. Thanks
 
Hi! The Visual Studio Installer is an Add-In for Visual Basic. You can also look for it in the VB CD's, since it is part of Microsoft InterDev. Actually, the Visual Studio Installer IS an InterDev project.

What I have found about the Visual Studio Installer (maybe I don't know how to use it very good yet...), is that once you update your application, the VSI doesn't recognize the updated version and instructs the user to uninstall the previous version and install the new version. With the PDW, any upgrades are automatically detected, hence not having to uninstall and then install (not re-install, install) the application again.

I have tried to download Inno a few times, but for some reason I can't. For the time being I will keep using the PDW, since it was worked fine for me. As to modifiying the Setup.lst file, I just re-package the application. I rather spend 10 minutes P & D the app than modifiying the setup.lst.

So, I am pleased with the PDW so far. I'll let you all know when I finally download Inno.



"If the universe is only ours, what a terrible waste of space!"
 
Zor,

Look at the MicroSoft Download Center site at then "More Downloads..."
In the Download Center, I found two links to Windows Installer 2.0: One for '95, '98 & ME; the other for NT4 & 2000.

On the Download Center's search (bottom of the form) I entered "Visual Studio" for the Product Type and "Installer" for the Keyword which gave me some unrelated links, but also two Visual Studio Installer links, easily found by searching by Title: Visual Studio 6.0 Installer (2002), and Visual Studio Installer 1.1 (1999).

Currently, I can't seem to get either of the VS installer links to work. I've tried links to the VB Installers in other posts but nothing. Just "This page con not be displayed." Maybe you will have better luck. I've been trying them since before noon.
 
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