Deployment

Add-in Express™ Support Service
That's what is more important than anything else

Deployment
Which Deployment method to use 
Michael Kaden


Guest


Dear Andrei,

In support request {ID:305717009} you wrote:

There are several ways to deploy your add-in. If you need to install updates, you can use ClickOnce and ClickTwice. I suggest using the latter: it allows deploying your add-in using traditional MSI files. That is, you create a simple MSI deploying your add-in and then use ClickTwice to publish the add-in installer; check section ClickTwice Deployment, see the PDF file in the folder {Add-in Express}\Docs on your development PC


I looked at the manual and also other sources, and I am still not certain to which Deployment Method will be best for my Project. I want to cover the following specification, in order of importance (1. is more important than 2.):

1.) The user should be able to install the program by only clicking on a hyperlink

2.) the installation program should ask as few questions (opening forms) as possible.

3.) Microsoft installation versions should be minimal if any.

4.) The setup program should have Multilanguage feasibilities, i.e. run in the culture language of the installers PC. This can be limited to the most common languages like WIX does (we use de-en-ar-es-fr-it-ja-pt-ru-zh in our project and WIX does all of these except ar which is ok) or if we have access to the setup project files so we can put the appropriate language text in.

5.) The program should be installed with automatic update, i.e. check at a set interval via the internet if the version we have on our server is newer than the version on the PC and then install the newer version by only asking once.

I guess that the above is covered by MSI (can we change the setup files-forms to make them multilingual ?

With MSI I have however a problem.

I currently work on VS 2015 Community which does all I needed so far, but does not have the MSI Extension. In principle I would not have any problem to upgrade to Professional, however I find many reports in the internet that such upgrade has lead to major problems ?

Is there a way to install the MSI extension without upgrading to Professional?

thank you & regards

Michael
Posted 21 Jan, 2018 07:45:09 Top
Andrei Smolin


Add-in Express team


Posts: 18829
 Joined: 2006-05-11
Hello Michael,

Michael Kaden writes:
Is there a way to install the MSI extension without upgrading to Professional?


MSI extension? Are you talking about https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/f1cc3f3e-c300-40a7-8797-c509fb8933b9 extension?

ClickTwice is about installing and updating your add-in using MSI. You can create such a .MSI using WiX or any other installation software program; such a program may support all or some of the languages that you need to be supported. But on the low level, the MSI engine itself is customizable in a very serious degree.

Michael Kaden writes:
5.) The program should be installed with automatic update, i.e. check at a set interval via the internet if the version we have on our server is newer than the version on the PC and then install the newer version by only asking once.


Updating means uninstalling one version and installing a new one. There's a problem with uninstalling an add-in : it isn't possible to do this quietly. To uninstall an add-in, you must dereference COM objects and unload DLLs; the latter is only possible if you close the host application.


Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader
Posted 22 Jan, 2018 06:02:45 Top