Can any one tell me how to convert an legacy application which is vb6 ( COM dll's ocx and exes) to use Regfree COM .
I tried opening the dlls in visual studio and created manifest file, but some of the dlls it is giving error.
Is there any tools out there which will help me to do this process?
I tried a tool from codeproject which is called regsvr42, which is not creating the manifest fully.
I used tools like PE explorer where I get all the typelib information , but converting them into manifest files is too difficult.
We have started migrating that to .NET, for some months we have to deploy it, it will easier if it is xcopy based deployment.
To create manifest files you can try to use Make My Manifest from http://mmm4vb6.atom5.com/.
EDIT The MMM website is down. I see here that the author was having trouble with their hosting and has provided another location to get Make My Manifest - download it here.
If you can control creation of objects you can use DirectCOM from http://www.thecommon.net/10.html
Keep in mind that if one of used DLLs or OCXs is creating other COM objects dynamically with CreateObject calls, that reference will not be stored in vbp project file and you won't get full manifest file. Probably you will have to catch object creations while the application is running. Depends.exe application can profile running application and report all used dlls. I don't know if there is tool that can find additional COM related information.
There is an excellent walkthrough of what to do in this article on MSDN: Registration-Free Activation of COM Components: A Walkthrough.
Make My Manifest can accomodate late binding as well as early binding. You simply have to add the references to the late-bound dependencies manually, by file location or by ProgId.
You might look at http://mmm4vb6.atom5.com/mmm-demo-1248.html for additional help in using the utility.
MakeMyManifest is well spoken of as an automatic tool for creating manifests for VB6 projects, haven't tried it myself.
DirectCOM also has fans, again I haven't tried it.
EDIT The MMM website is down. I see here that the author was having trouble with their hosting and has provided another location to get Make My Manifest - download it here.
There is a semi-automatic technique. You can create the manifests with Visual Studio 2008 (you can use a free version like Visual Basic Express Edition). Then make a couple of edits by hand to make the manifests suitable for use from VB6. See this section of this MSDN article for step-by-step instructions - ignore the rest of the article which is about ClickOnce.
Related
I've created an Outlook add-in, debugged and works fine. I want to be able to package it up for distribution. This is for a very limited audience 5-10 people. What are the steps to doing so?
I tried Build | Publish which appears to work (using options of local filename and CDROM install location), but creates a massive 1.5MB setup.exe file and when it is executed, takes forever (it appears trying to contact some remote server and times out and pops an error, although the add-in appears to be registered).
Looking online, I found references to creating a SetupProject or using InstallShield Limited addition, but none of those appear to apply to Visual Studio 2017.
I'd be happy if I could just provide my DLL and a .reg file -- this is for a small set of 5-10 power users.
What is the simplest way to deploy this add-in?
The easiest way is Build | Publish. Just disable any online activities if you don't want it. You can do that in Project -> Settings -> Publish. Check your "Updates" settings for example.
You can download a Visual Studio project type from here:
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=VisualStudioProductTeam.MicrosoftVisualStudio2017InstallerProjects
This will allow you to deploy the package, but it's somewhat buggy in my opinion. Also, the link above does not have any documentation. You have to go to another page for that and the answer is buried in the comments:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ybshs20f(v=vs.90).aspx
The ClickOnce has worked more consistently for us, however. Just right-click and select Publish on the Project.
It is a long ways off from the old InstallShield LE process, which allowed you to customize the entire process including images, click-through licensing, etc.
But the InstallShield LE had it's own set of issues, and seems to have been all but abandoned.
It may be worth looking at other 3rd-party tools like WiX (http://wixtoolset.org/) to get things installed correctly, or even manually writing your own installer to get things put where they need to be.
Having trouble getting MSBuild/Visual Studio 2012 to deploy a CRM 2011 Plugin Assembly to a named CRM Solution.
I've 2 project/SLNs. In one, I can precisely control which CRM Solution the build deploys a Plugin Assembly into; my msbuild (call this build-1) creates a CRM Solution with my custom entities/forms and Plugins. In another, despite specifying the exact values via msbuild /p for CRMOrganization, CRMSolutionName, CRMDiscoveryServer, 'CRMDiscoveryServerScheme, the resulting CRM Solution contains only the entities/forms. The Plugins are deployed but placed incorrectly into the Default Solution (call this build-2).
I've created build-2 from copy/pasting the values (except SLN and Project names) from build-1...and am at a loss to understand why build-1 deploys the plugins to my named CRM Solution, but build-2 deploys them to the Organization's Default CRM Solution.
Any ideas?
CRM might look specifically at Display name instead of Schema Name as the solution Name.
Unfortunately the CRM Developer Toolkit in both VS010 and VS2012 versions is configured at the solution level only. Therefore, despite adding multiple projects to your solution they will both use the CRM Organisation settings at the solution level. It's a rather annoying limitation that's existed since the first release of the tooling I'm afraid.
The MSBuild target file used by VS (Microsoft.CrmDeveloperTools.CrmClient.target) is available at the default install location C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\CRM. This folder also includes the supporting assembly containing the MSBuild Tasks if you felt like rolling your own build target.
I've looked at this briefly myself in the past but a word of warning, many of the classes in that assembly are sealed so extending them is off the table.
I have developed an Excel XLL using ExcelDNA and C#. I am at the point where I would like to begin testing the deployment, but cannot find much information that actually provides steps that work.
My project was developed as a Class library with ExcelDna references. In the .dna file, I have the code below that will pack all resources into a packed version of the XLL (i.e. the Pack="true" attribute).
<DnaLibrary Name="ExcelXLL" RuntimeVersion="v4.0" Language="C#">
<ExternalLibrary Path="ExcelXLL.dll" LoadFromBytes="false" Pack="true" />
I would like to deploy the packed XLL to the target machine in the path:
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\AddIns
In order to automatically register the XLL with Excel, I need to add a registry key that depends on the version of Excel that the user has.
For instance, on my computer (Windows 7 64 bit running Excel 2007 32-bit), I would need to add a registry key to the following path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Excel\Options\
The key would be type REG_SZ with the name OPEN (or OPEN1, OPEN2, etc.) and the value
/R "ExcelXLL-packed.xll"
I have 2 problems though. The first is in determining which version of Excel that the user has to get the correct path and the 2nd is to determine the correct OPEN version that I need to create (for example, if the user already has OPEN, OPEN1, and OPEN2 then I would create an OPEN3 key).
I am trying to do the installation using either the Setup and Deployment project or a InstallShield LE project and cannot determine how to go about this. Does anyone know how to do this or a better way of doing it?
EDIT 1:
I have done a great deal of research on this and have looked at several windows installers.
In the Package and Deployment and InstallShield LE, I can get the install/uninstall to work by putting an installer class into my class library and bundling project output with the install. In this approach, I handle inserting/removing the registry key using the installer class. The problem that I have is that the user must uninstall first before running a new install (no update capability).
I downloaded the Setup Factory demo version and can get install/update to work but cannot do the framework check (not shipped with the demo). Also, the uninstall fails (though I may be able to get this to work with some more investigation).
I am interested in using the WiX installer, but would like to know if anyone has a sample of how to perform the deployment using WiX. I would also like to know if I need to use the installer class or if there is a different way to handle the search for the OPEN[n] key under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office[Version].0\Excel\Options. If I were to use the project output to enable the installer class, then I need to have 2 separate target directories (one under Program Files for the basic project output and one under %appdata%\Microsoft\AddIns for the packed XLL).
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Lee
To detect Excel 32-bit vs. 64-bit, you can check the registry: Detect whether Office is 32bit or 64bit via the registry
For the OPEN, OPEN1, OPEN2 etc. you typically need a Custom Action in the install script that enumerates the keys.
Using IsWix and Wix 3.7, I was able to resolve this.
Useful links for how to register the components are as follows:
For generating a C# class to handle Windows Installer Custom Actions:
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/132918/Creating-Custom-Action-for-WIX-Written-in-Managed?fid=1599130&df=90&mpp=25&noise=3&prof=False&sort=Position&view=Quick&spc=Relaxed&select=4131367&fr=1#xx0xx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jschaffe/archive/2012/10/23/creating-wix-custom-actions-in-c-and-passing-parameters.aspx
For setting the property of the CustomAction.config file to Content
WIX Custom Actions built for .Net Framework 4.0 does not work? Ways to resolve?
EDIT 1:
For general knowledge on WiX (Very important)
http://channel9.msdn.com/blogs/scobleizer/wix-team-the-most-used-piece-of-software-at-microsoft-and-its-open-source#Page=2
I'm currently working on an shared library based on mono, where I want to put as much business logic of my app as possible.
I used this helpful tutorial.
I managed putting the whole logic for rest-requests in this shared library, but now I'm stuck with soap.
I used the wsdl command of mono to generate Client Stubcode from my wsdl (as described here http://www.mono-project.com/Web_Services).
When I put the generated class to my C# library, which is the root project of my shared library, there is a warning that the Reference to System.Web.Services cannot be found.
So I included the System.Web.Services.dll manually.
For the Android Library Project I added a Reference to ...\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\MonoAndroid\v1.0\System.Web.Services.dll. It compiles without warnings.
But now it comes to the Windows Phone Library Project.
There is no System.Web.Services.dll for WP 7.5, right? I tried with the Mono-Touch dll but it gives me a lot compilation Errors.
Someone knows how I can get out of this?
I actually had some issues with the generated WSDL myself. Turns out that the classes that were generated through the "Create Web Reference" piece of Visual Studio inside of a Mono for Android project ended up causing some big issues when connected to a WCF Web Service. Not sure where I ran into this information, but this is what I ended up doing.
What you need to do is manually create a Service Reference using the SILVERLIGHT SVCUtil.
On my development system it was located here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v3.0\Tools
I called it with the below command line:
slsvcutil.exe http://localhost/<path to WCF service endpoint>/service.svc /directory:"<temp directory to store generated cs file>" /noConfig /namespace:"*,<Full namespace of the generated class>"
That will actually generate a CS file that is saved into the path specified by the /directory tag above. Copy that generated cs file to your project directory and then include it in the project.
The problem that I was having that forced me to look for another option was that I was able to pull the data properly using the WSDL generated through the "Add Web Reference" option in Visual Studio, but as soon as I tried to pass the data back up the wire to the web service, everything blew up. Using the Service Reference generated by the Silverlight Service Util actually generated all the code properly for Async operations and after learning how to properly manage those Async operations everything works like a dream.
Since you are generating this new WSDL using the Silverlight Utility, it should work just fine through Windows Phone 7. I believe that the DLL to reference for all of this is the System.ServiceModel dll.
I wish I could remember where I ran across this information, as I would like to give the original author credit, but unfortunately, I don't recall that.
Hope that helps out!
Chaitanya Marvici
I have an ASP.NET MVC 2 application.
Web project contains a reference to SomeProject
SomeProject contains references to ExternalAssembly1 and ExternalAssembly2.
SomeProject explicitly calls into ExternalAssembly1, but NOT ExternalAssembly2.
ExternalAssembly1 calls into ExternalAssembly2
When I perform a local build everything is cool. All DLLs are included in the bin\debug folder. The problem is that when I use the Publish Web command in Visual Studio 2010, it deploys everything except ExternalAssembly2.
It appears to ignore assemblies that aren't directly used (remember, ExternalAssembly2 is only used by ExternalAssembly1).
Is there any way I can tell Visual Studio 2010 to include ExternalAssembly2?
I can write a dummy method that calls into ExternalAssembly2. This does work, but I really don't want to have dummy code for the sole purpose of causing VS2010 to publish the DLL.
None of these answers are sufficient in my mind. This does seem to be a genuine bug. I will update this response if I ever find a non-hack solution, or Microsoft fixes the bug.
Update:
Doesn't seem promising.
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/731303/publish-web-feature-not-including-all-dlls
I am having this same problem (different assemblies though). If I reference the assemblies in my web project, then they will get included in the publish output, but they should be included anyway because they are indirect dependencies:
Web Project ---> Assembly A ---> Assembly B
On build, assemblies A and B are outputed to the \bin folder. On publish, only assembly A is outputed to the publish folder.
I have tried changing the publish settings to include all files in the web project, but then I have files in my publish output that shouldn't be deployed.
This seems like a bug to me.
I had the same problem with VS2010 and a WCF Service Application.
It turns out that if your (directly or indirectly) referenced DLL's are deployed to GAC, the VS publishing feature excludes them. Once I removed the assemblies from GAC, publishing feature started working as expected.
I guess VS is assuming that if your assemblies can be located in GAC on the machine you build, they will be located in GAC on the target machine as well. At least in my case this assumption is false.
My tests show that the external assemblies get published when I have a reference on them in the web project. I do not have to write any dummy code to make it work. This seems acceptable to me.
I agree with Nicholas that this seems to be a bug in visual studio. At least it escapes me what the reason for the behavior could be.
I have created this issue as a bug on Microsoft Connect. If anyone experiencing it could vote it up https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/637071/publish-web-feature-not-including-all-dlls then hopefully we'll get something done about it.
If you go into the ExternalAssembly2 reference property list and change the "Copy Local" to "True" i think that might solve your issue.
I don't know if you are watching this still but I found the solution (I had the exact same issue) via this MSDN article. Under "build action" for the file choose "Content" that should include it in the list of files publish brings over.
I have created a new Connect bug here https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/731303/publish-web-feature-not-including-all-dlls
I've also attached a solution and detailed steps to reproduce this issue. Lets hope this time they won't close it as Can't Reproduce.
Vote for this connect issue if you experience the missing dll problem.
Copy local did the trick. I had an issue that the Newtonsoft.Json assembly get included in the deploymeny package. Copy local was set to false.
I am experiencing the same type of issue with a web project. I have a web project that references assembly A which references assembly B. It worked fine for some time but today it was broken. I did a rebuild of the solution and this time it deployed everything correctly.
I had this same problem today. I published my web project and realized that not all of the reference DLL's were there. In particular, the indirect DLL references.
It turns out that the directory in which I was publishing to was out of disk space (network share). I had just enough space to publish all the files except for few indirect reference DLL's. The sad part is that VS08 didn't throw any errors. It just published the files are usual. I cleared out some HDD space and everything worked fine.
I didn't find the HDD space issue until I tried to manually move the DLL's over.
in my case it is quite tricky.
Reference to ExternalAssembly2 is not required to Build the project but vital for run-time since we use reflection to configure Unity container.
So, I delete the reference - build the project successfully, but get run-time error.
If I preserve the reference I can Build and Run the application but I cannot Publish it with ExternalAssembly2 - get run-time exception as well.
This is happen because of internal VS2010 assemblies optimization.
So, what we can do here?
1. Put some unrequired peice of code to use any ExternalAssembly2's class.
2. escape from reflection and use static assemblies linking.
Hope this helps to smbd.
I got the same problem and this is a VS2010 bug if there's a reference link like:
Web Project --> custom project --> assembly1 -->(indirectly) assembly2.
For now I find if I reference the Assembly1 in the web project, then assembly2 is included in the bin folder.
So I had to add an additional reference link like:
Web project --> assembly1 -->(indirectly) assembly2.
Then VS can recognize assembly2 and include its dll file in publish action.