How to Create Excel Installer with Already ready project?

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How to Create Excel Installer with Already ready project?
Problem with creating installer 
pooh008




Posts: 1
 Joined: 2017-07-28
Hello.
I have a question about how to create an installer of already ready Excel Add-In project. How can I create it using your software without writing all over again? I'm using Visual Studio 2017 and my solution is built from three different projects.
Pooh008
Posted 28 Jul, 2017 15:13:36 Top
Andrei Smolin


Add-in Express team


Posts: 18830
 Joined: 2006-05-11
Hello,

I assume you talk about creating an MSI-based setup project.

To create a setup project for an add-in project, Add-in Express uses the information provided by the add-in module. This information answers these questions:

- supported Office application(s)?
- is the add-in is per-user or per-machine?

When creating the setup project, Add-in Express uses .NET to load your add-in assembly and collect dependencies.

An integral part of the setup project is the adxregistrator.exe utility; it is specified as a custom action to be run when the add-in is installed or uninstalled. When run, adxregistrator.exe creates an instance of the add-in module and scans components located on it to get ProgIDs and GUIDs of the add-in itself and COM components to be registered: CTPs and Outlook property pages. When this info is collected, adxregistrator.exe creates the registry registry keys required for your add-in to load. One of them points to adxloader.dll/adxloader64.dll. For Office to load your add-in means to load that DLL. The DLL looks for adxloader.dll.manifest that specifies your add-in's assembly. Once the assembly is found, the loader creates an AppDomain, loads the assembly into the domain, creates an instance of the add-in module and connects it to Office events.

That is, your add-in project needs to have these entities:
- add-in module
- if you use Custom Task Panes and/or Outlook Property pages, these must be specified using the properties that the add-in module provides
- adxloader.dll/adxloader64.dll/adxloader.dll.manifest; these must be located in the Loader subfolder of your add-in project

I suggest that you create a new empty add-in project, let Add-in Express create a setup project for it, study the setup project and replicate it on your existing project. You can find more info in section Creating MSI Installers, see the PDF file in the folder {Add-in Express}\Docs on your development PC. The section also describes creating a setup project form scratch. You may also find useful section Deployment Step-by-steps.


Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader
Posted 31 Jul, 2017 05:39:25 Top