Deployment FAQ

[Pino]

Installers

Package & Deployment Wizard (AddIn included with VB 5/6 Pro & Ent. versions)

Visual Studio Installer 1.1 (a newer Microsoft tool compatible with VB6)

Inno Setup

Nullsoft Scriptable Install System

Wise Installer

InstallAnywhere.NET 3.0

InstallShield

Setup Factory

Deployment Guides

Best practices for deploying Visual Basic 6.0 applications
(this includes links for solving various errors, such as the next item in this list)

VB6/VB5 - how do I fix a repeating reboot and "System Files Are Out of Date" message? (applies to Package & Deployment Wizard and ASW)

VB6 - How To Create a Visual Basic Installer Package with Visual Studio Installer
VB6 - Full documentation for Visual Studio Installer

Why you should not include MSVCRT.dll in your package

Deployment with VB6 and Inno Setup
Inno Setup FAQ

Deploying Windows Applications with Visual Studio.NET, Part 1 Added 1/21/05

Deploying Windows Applications with Visual Studio.NET, Part 2 Added 1/21/05

Deploying Your Application (link provided by dilettante) Added 1.8.09

Have Anything To Add? Pm a Moderator (Kleinma or RobDog888)

[kleinma]

one of the best set of installer scripts for INNO I have ever come across.

http://www13.brinkster.com/vincenzog/articles.asp?ps=60

[RhinoBull]

I'm just suprised as to why Package & Deployment Wizard (aka (P&DW) wasn't even mentioned?
It's a mighty handy tool that came shipped with Visual Studio 5 and 6, it's simple to use and more importantly you have full source control.

[Dnereb]

Only in the proffesional and enterprise editions as far as i know...
but it could have been altered later

[RhinoBull]

Yea, but anything below that cannot be considered as a real development tool so Learning and Standard Editions are out scope (for me at least).

[RobDog888]

Something like that is what you had in mind guys?

[kleinma]

Not that I want to ramble about how bad the PDW is, but it is pretty bad for anything but the most simple installation.

I know you can tweak the setup.lst and even the installation itself, but for the most part, it can really leave you in a bind.

I had created a setup using the PDW for a customer on my XP system. I gave the installer files to them, and they installed on a 98 machine. The machine proceeded to BSOD, because unknown to me, the setup copied my XP version of msvcrt.dll (Microsoft Visual C Runtime), to his 98 machine, and broke it. I had to go find a version of the file from some other 98 box and have him from a floppy and manually copy the file.

Including MDAC/Jet drivers is another nightmare also...

[RobDog888]

Well wouldnt that have be avoided by packaging it on a 98 system.
the P&D is fine for most basic programs but yes for more advanced installlations and programs you will want to use a third party installer.

[kleinma]

Well wouldnt that have be avoided by packaging it on a 98 system.

yes it would have, but I don't know what would then happen if took THAT setup, and installed it on an XP machine.

My point is basically that you can get VERY unpredicable results using the PDW, and if you do use it, then you need to test it on EVERY OS you plan to target with your software (that includes Service Pack and non Service Pack versions of the OS). Now while this is true of ANY program/installer, more issues seem to arise from the PDW than any others I have seen. I have used PDW, INNO, InstallShield, and WISE

A newcommer to programming may think is a great MS app, and that it should know what files it should and should not include, only to end up with lots of issues when they start trying to distribute the app. Lets not forget the PDW has not been updated in a long while.

[RobDog888]

Yes, but for those members that are wanting to write their own installer (as the source is provided too) or are just looking for a basic solution the P&D is suffiucient. I have never had a problem using it and I still do.

[kleinma]

Yes, but for those members that are wanting to write their own installer (as the source is provided too) or are just looking for a basic solution the P&D is suffiucient. I have never had a problem using it and I still do.

How do you distribute proper versions of MDAC/JET when using PDW? Or is that not an issue for the software you write?

[RobDog888]

Maybe I have just been lucky but I write more apps using SQL Server vs Access and havent had to worry about JET. I wrote a large app for a police department using the P&D Wiz, SQL Server, and Crystal Reports and installed it on 20+ workstations from NT4 - 2000 Pro - XP SP-1 with no issues.

[RhinoBull]

Not that I want to ramble about how bad the PDW is, but it is pretty bad for anything but the most simple installation....

You know Matt, I respect your opinion (just everyone's else) but I'm sory - I will disagree as far as disagreement goes... I've used P&DW for very complex distribution and NEVER had a single major problem !!! You've got a source right at your fingertips so modify it as you wish. If you dislike something - that's fine - but please don't say it's bad.

Regards.

edit: some typos...

[kleinma]

Here are a few MSKB articles that outline pitfalls in the PDW that require manual reworking to get a working setup file.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299645/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q191001
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/295592/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/190778/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221541/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/260581/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/191095/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/254166/en-us

Don't get me wrong, I don't like the .NET installer much more than I like the PDW.

Lets say you wanted to offer your program for download, how would you go about that? Zip it up and tell the end user to download it, unzip it, and then run the setup.exe? It is not very professional, and you will lose any potential users that don't know how to do that..

That, other than the bugs in the PDW, is the main reason I use a 3rd party installer, so I can wrap the entire setup into 1 single .exe file.

[Code Doc]

Matt, et al.,
For over a year now I have been distributing my VB6 Apps using Tarma QuickInstall.
http://www.tarma.com/
I have received very good tech support and it now works on Vista and all the way back to Win '95.

The interface is a little tricky at first, but it's flexible and powerful. Compression down to one executable is also excellent (zipping the final Setup.exe saves practically nothing in space because it's about as packed as it can go). This compression is much tighter than the old P&DW. Installation execution speed is very fast. At less than $100, I think it's a good value.

[kleinma]

I have tried WISE and Install Shield, but for the types of apps I do, INNO has proved to be perfect. It works really well, and is 100% free.

[jeanette_db]

what are the other softwares in creating a package/installer?

[dilettante]

How do you distribute proper versions of MDAC/JET when using PDW? Or is that not an issue for the software you write?

How To Control Which MDAC Version the Package and Deployment Wizard (PDW) Distributes

Pretty old news actually.


I'm amazed nobody has mentioned IExpress, which came in Win2K, XP, and Vista and was part of the IEAK for years. Here are some links:

IExpress Installer

Internet Explorer 4 Resource Kit Appendix L - IExpress Configuration Wizard

Create Executable Wrappers with IExpress in Windows Vista and Windows XP

[drag0n_45]

Between installshield and wise, which is the better? I need something that will automatically find the dll's and such that I need for my project, which from what I can tell Inno doesn't.

[si_the_geek]

I don't know about those two, but don't rule out Inno based on that issue - you can easily get the info from P&DW, then create an Inno package based on it.

There is an explanation on how to do that in the "Deployment with VB6 and Inno Setup" link in the first post.

[drag0n_45]

i read through that. I'm not fully ruling out inno, and if i have to do that list coversion i will, but there's got to be an easier way to do it instead of going through that file EVERY TIME i want to distribute a product.

[si_the_geek]

You don't need to do it every time - only when you add extra dependencies (Components or References) to your project.

[drag0n_45]

hmm...ok I was also pm'd a great reference for a program that creates the inno script for you based off of the setup.lst fie.

[Napoleon]

Hi Kleinma,

The url below, taken from the 2nd post in this thread leads to an Error 404. Can you please update the link.

Regards,
Nap

one of the best set of installer scripts for INNO I have ever come across.

http://www13.brinkster.com/vincenzog/articles.asp?ps=60

[si_the_geek]

I can't find the exact article he referred to, but the site has moved to here: http://www.vincenzo.net/isxkb/index.php?title=Main_Page

[Nightwalker83]

If anybody needs it here an instructions on how to use the P/D Wizard with VB 5/6:

Make sure you follow those steps (may be differ)

1. goto the d/p wizard.

2. choose the (app.vbp you want to maker the setup for) then click Package.

3. Click the type of package you want then click Next.

4. Choose the directory you want to assemble the package in then click Next.

5. Choose between ocx or dll then click Next (may not happen)

6. Choose how many cab files you want

7. Write the title you want for your app installation.

8. Choose the icons you want to the Start Menu.

9. Choose the locations where you want each file to be installed.

10. Choose if you want to share the file or not.

11. Enter a script name.

12. Click finish.

[dilettante]

If anybody wants to make advanced use of IExpress or create their own packager/installer based on the old shell-based installation built into Windows they might want to know more about INF files.

A very detailed reference is available at INF Guide, and the whole Web site is currently available in a ZIP archive for offline reading too.

The page at Package it into a self-extracting installer with the IExpress tool has some useful info on IExpress itself as well. This talks about how you can use IExpress as a packager to bundle up an installation INF file or a custom-built installer EXE with the pieces and parts making up your application.

Note that both IExpress and the INF processor come with Windows starting with XP, and in older versions of Windows you can install IExpress. The target system can be Windows 95 (with "new shell" from IE 4.x) or later, and nothing special is required there but the installation package that IExpress produces (as a self-extracting EXE).