Windows Installer MSI & Clickonce issues

VS2010 Setup project - Migration from VS2008 does not work with Upgrades

Symptom Migrated a Setup project from VS2008 to VS2010 and set RemovePreviousVersion=True so as to...

Author: Soumitra Mondal Date: 08/03/2010

ClickOnce - .net 4.0 errors: "Deployment manifest is not semantically valid" and "Deployment manifest is missing "

Team Build 2010 is being used to build the deployment manifest for a .Net 4.0 application to be...

Author: Soumitra Mondal Date: 08/03/2010

ClickOnce - File accociations are lost upon progrmmatic updates to ClickOnce on Win 7 X64

File associations created for ClickOnce applications are lost only on Win 7 X64 bit machines upon a...

Author: Soumitra Mondal Date: 08/03/2010

VS Setup project - vsdraCOM sets codebase in registry to point to the SourcePath

Using VS Setup project to deploy an application that uses COM component. The COM component is being...

Author: Soumitra Mondal Date: 08/03/2010

VS Setup project - Pass Checkbox properties as arguments to MSI during silient installations

Checkboxes are used in Install UI to select what files need to be installed. This works fine when...

Author: Soumitra Mondal Date: 08/03/2010

ClickOnce -- TargetFrameworkVersion

Issue: =============== Though the ClickOnce application is set to ToolsVersion="3.5" and the...

Author: Aditya Hari Date: 06/21/2010

MSI: Using regasm to register COM may cause resiliency during application launch

Building an installer for an application in VS2005. The application consists of several dll projects...

Author: Gauravb Date: 12/21/2009

Windows Installer 4.0 - MSI that installs data files under System Protected folders does not remove files upon uninstall.

Installing data files (.mdb) into System Protected folders (Program Files, System32 etc..) on...

Author: Gauravb Date: 12/21/2009

MSI: Unable to elevate an uninstallation via ARP in Vista

MSI built using WiX Installer consists of Actions that require elevation. The CustomActions are not...

Author: Gauravb Date: 12/21/2009

Native Custom action dll fails to build on x64

when you changed the build environment from Win32 to x64 and tried to build the setup project Its...

Author: Gauravb Date: 12/21/2009

Per-User installation of an MSI as standard user on Vista is installing files into Administrators profile

Files are being installed into the Administrators Profile rather than to the Standard Users profile....

Author: Gauravb Date: 12/21/2009

MSI: About the Uninstall Registry Key, WindowsInstaller Value

MSI packages built using Visual Studio Setup and Deployment project create the following registry...

Author: Gauravb Date: 12/21/2009

How to make ClickOnce work over SSL requiring client certificates

Current feature limitations of Clickonce does not provide for security over internet by design. It...

Author: Gauravb Date: 12/21/2009

How to build an MSI to deploy ActiveX control

  1. Create a new Setup and Deployment Project in Visual Studio. 2. Include the ocx files in the...

Author: Gauravb Date: 12/21/2009

How to disable the default Launch condition for the .Net Framework in a Visual Studio Setup and Deployment project.

Two ways to do this. 1)Create a Transform to make apply changes to the MSI as to skip the default...

Author: Gauravb Date: 12/21/2009

ClickOnce Publish Error: "Cannot continue. The application is improperly formatted. Contact the application Vendor"

Publish fails with Error "Cannot continue. The application is improperly formatted. Contact the...

Author: Gauravb Date: 11/03/2009

ClickOnce:VS08 SP1 XML serialization assemblies not publishing

When using msbuild to publish the ClickOnce application which uses XML serialization assemblies we...

Author: Gauravb Date: 11/03/2009

ClickOnce Application Security Settings

The difference between the following two Security Settings in ClickOnce Application: a> Selecting...

Author: Gauravb Date: 10/27/2009

How to add a .net dll within your application setup (Windows Installer Package) using Visual Studio 2005/2008

There are two methods to do it. Method 1: Create a registry file for registration of the DLL file...

Author: Gauravb Date: 10/19/2009

Web Setup (Windows Installer) project created in Visual Studio fails on a Windows 2003 Server

Based on the msi verbose log (https://support.microsoft.com/kb/223300) I found the following root...

Author: Gauravb Date: 10/19/2009

Advertised COM add-in won't trigger on-demand install if you want to deploy the Add-in with the following conditions (HKEY_USERS + COM Add-in + managed desktop

The Shared Add-In uses COM Shim, is obfuscated and is signed with Authenticode signature. I...

Author: Gauravb Date: 10/19/2009

While clicking on “Calculate Permissions” button after including “WebPermission” for a partial trust application, prompts a message box “This application requires full trust to run correctly. Would you like to set this as a full trust application?”

I created a windows application and added a .net web service reference. Under partial trust...

Author: Gauravb Date: 10/19/2009

After successfully publishing a ClickOnce application, when you try to install the application you receive an XML page on the browser window as IE opens the Application Manifest

In this scenario we receive an XML page when we click on the “Install” button for the ClickOnce...

Author: Gauravb Date: 10/19/2009

How to change the size of the ClickOnce cache and how roll back occurs in ClickOnce

ClickOnce applications that are hosted online are restricted in the amount of space they can occupy...

Author: Gauravb Date: 10/19/2009

This advertised application will not be installed because it might be unsafe. Contact your administrator to change the installation user interface option of the package to basic

In this scenario you may receive an error "This advertised application will not be installed because...

Author: Gauravb Date: 10/19/2009

Why shouldn’t we create manual Shortcuts for apps which are deployed via ClickOnce?

With the .NET Framework 3.5 Sp1 we have added a new feature to install shortcuts on the desktop to...

Author: Gauravb Date: 09/29/2009

Using MSM from Security update 971090 and 973673 as prerequisite to create MSI, minor update would not work

MSI Log ============ MSI (s) (80:28) [12:21:51:453]: SELMGR: Removal of a component from a feature...

Author: Gauravb Date: 09/09/2009

Visual studio only allows Product Version Property format in form of ##.##.#### only. For forth field it would give Build error for setup Project

Windows Installer Product Version Property only allows the format major.minor.build However general...

Author: Gauravb Date: 09/09/2009

MSI patch created using Patchwiz version 3.0 may fail on Windows Installer 4.5 or behave differently

Recently we have figure out that when we try creating patch using latest version of Wise Installer...

Author: Gauravb Date: 09/09/2009

How to sign the BootStrapper when modifying the URL in the .application file when Manually Deploying a ClickOnce Application that Does Not Require Re-Signing and that Preserves Branding Information.

Recently, worked on an issue where we encountered a situation where one of my customer is following...

Author: Gauravb Date: 09/01/2009

Web setup Package: fails while executing WEBCA_EvaluateURLsNoFail custom action

Visual studio2005 or 2008 could create Web Setup project. There are inbuilt custom action in web...

Author: Gauravb Date: 07/17/2009

Clickonce application fails after changing Configuration file and resigning the manifest

During the installation of clickonce applications at a customer site, we may have to modify one of...

Author: Gauravb Date: 07/17/2009

This operation has been cancelled due to restriction in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator. Click ok

Some of the companies have a GPO 'Run only allowed Windows Application' set. For the Clickonce to...

Author: Gauravb Date: 07/17/2009

Unable to install or run the application. The application requires that assembly Version 8.0.0.0 be installed in the GAC Assembly Cache first. Please contact your system administrator.

I ran into an interesting scenario today. "Unable to install or run the application. The application...

Author: Gauravb Date: 07/17/2009