MSDN Library provides access to essential programming information, including technical reference documentations, white papers, software development kits and code samples necessary to develop web services and applications. This is an updated version of the MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 and this library contains Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 documentation.
This documentation contains information about the version of WiX distributed with Visual Studio Team System code name "Rosario" November CTP. It contains information about:
• What WiX is
• Using WiX on the command line
• Using WiX in Visual Studio
• WiX Schema Reference
• Advanced WiX Usage such as patch building, custom actions, and extensions
• Additional help links and resources
In yet another article at kirupa.com, the author has a tutorial based for deploying .NET applications using ClickOnce, this time on/for Windows Vista. ClickOnce continues to be growing and with the advent of User Account Control in Vista and other security related features, it may prove to be the most viable technology for installing applications in the near future where “deep” installation(s) are not required.
This proves to be a very good tutorial for “beginners” to ClickOnce application publishing. Click Here to visit the article.
As a latest addition for “tutorials” for how to create Windows Installer Packages using Visual Studio, author Prabhakar Manikonda at CodeGuru has simplified some steps involved to help .NET programmers get used to this easy-to-setup program that allows to deploy applications even without any knowledge of writing setup scripts.
With screenshots and detailed 5-step process, author concludes, “I hope that many of the .NET developers who use traditional setup script programs will find this an easy and simple way to deploy your software. More than that, if you got the licensed Visual Studio .NET with you, there is no need to purchase setup applications from other companies because Visual Studio .NET itself offers it to you.”
ClickOnce provides an easy-to-use and flexible deployment mechanism for smart client applications built for the .NET Framework 2.0. ClickOnce offers end-user deployment, ready-made installation dialogs, a built-in security model, and automatic or on-demand updates. But while it’s great to have so many built-in features, one area that users often request more control is in tracking who uses which applications, controlling access to those applications, and knowing when something goes wrong. You may just need to keep track of who is using which versions of each application at the user level. You may want to restrict access to certain applications and updates based on a user’s identity or their association with a role or group. You may want to know when launch errors have occurred for particular users so that you can troubleshoot deployment problems if they exist.
This whitepaper discusses all of these scenarios. It identifies the places you can insert your own code or tools into the process for control or monitoring purposes. Several alternative solutions are discussed, allowing you to pick the approach that provides the best trade-off of complexity and control given your requirements. This whitepaper also identifies potential hazards of certain solutions that may seem like a good idea, but that can lead to fragility or unexpected results. Along the way, author gives you insight into what artifacts are being placed where when you publish and deploy a ClickOnce application.
White Paper Info - Author: Brian Noyes, Microsoft Regional Director and MVP
Published: June 2006, Revised October 2006 (sample download added)
Applies to:
.NET Framework 2.0
Smart client application deployment
Windows Forms
If you are an application developer, you definitely understand that sometimes it’s a ‘pain’ for your application if users want to install multiple versions of .NET Framework (may be required for some other applications) because you understand the higher version either didn’t exist at the time of coding or ‘standard procedures’ were NOT followed for upgrade installations. Some enterprises face a huge challenge to deploy higher versions of .NET (as 2.0) if some applications do not run except the desired .NET version, similar to some Java Applications.
“Luckily, the .NET architecture no longer restricts you to such limitations. You can install multiple versions of components on a single server and benefit from their peaceful coexistence by running them simultaneously. Microsoft refers to this as side-by-side versioning”, writes Zubair Alexander. He further specifies, “It can be done on a Windows 2003 server, as long as you remember which version is which”.
With “ClickOnce“, running a Windows Forms application is as simple as clicking a link in a web page. Deploying or updating an application is simply a matter of updating files on a server; no need to individually touch every client. ClickOnce has the requirement pre-requisite of .NET Framework 2.0 or above which is listed on the default pre-requisite items including other runtime packages, windows installer engines and so forth. Through deployment, this becomes easier as we can create a single package with required pre-requisite along the application. However, we can only add those prerequisite through ClickOnce which are by default in prerequisite list while publishing.
To add your own (custom) prerequisite you need to have a boot strapper package. Amol Malpani at codeproject has some simple steps to create your own boot strapper package which will then be automatically included into the prerequisite list. Author guides for how to create custom pre-requisites by using “Bootstrapper Manifest Generator“. If you were struggling how to create such a package, this article is worth a start: Add your own custom pre-requisite to ClickOnce Applications
Amol also has other related articles recently published discussing about Publishing an Applicaiton using ClickOnce, without VS 2005 using Mage UI utility and Restore Application to Previous State using ClickOnce
Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for September Customer Technology Preview (CTP) was released on September 28, 2006. The Windows SDK contains documentation, samples, headers, libraries, and tools designed to help you develop Microsoft Windows applications. The documentation, samples, and tools provided in the Windows SDK support application programming interfaces (APIs) available in the Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) versions of Windows. Not all API support all platforms. You can look under the specific API documentation to determine which platform the API supports.
The documentation, samples, and tools provided in this release are preliminary and subject to change. This SDK is designed to use with Windows Vista build 5728 and the .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime September Customer Technology Preview. This release of the Windows SDK is compatible with the RTM versions of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. Visual Studio Extensions for .Net Framework 3.0 are available in the related resources.
NOTES:
There are a number of known issues with this release. Please consult the Release Notes associated with this download for more information. Reminder: This version of the Windows SDK will not work with previous pre-release versions of Windows Vista, the .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components for Windows XP or Windows Server, or previous pre-release versions of Visual Studio.
Please note that this download contains SDK content only. To build .NET Framework 3.0 applications for Windows XP or Windows Server, the .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components for September CTP must be downloaded separately.
