Build MSI withou VS.NET?

[localhost]

I have Visual Studio .NET 2003 and have created a MSI with a setup
project. Everything works fine, but now I would like to compile the
MSI without running the entire IDE.

I have compiled different .NET apps with "csc.exe" to make assembly
DLLs at the command line, but am not sure how it should be done to
make a MSI.

Help?

Thanks.

 

[Gabriele G. Ponti]

Check out DEVENV.EXE from the command line.

DEVENV /?

 

[EP]

If using from the command line from an automated process, use devenv.com

 

[localhost]

Thanks for the response.

However, devenv.exe is the Visual Studio IDE. I want to build my
entire solution without having Visual Studio on the system. I have
all of the source files that build with Visual Studio, but now I need
to automate the process.

It looks like the Visual Studio IDE is actually doing command-line
compiling. Why can't I do the same thing myself from a CMD?

Thanks.

 

[Tian Min Huang]

Hello,

Thanks for your feedback. As I understand, now that you want to build your
entire solution without Visual Studio .NET. Please correct me if there is
any misunderstanding. Based on my experience, it is very hard and sometimes
not possible to build a solution in a system without Visual Studio. Here
are the reasons:

1. Visual Studio .NET need to parse the information of the solution and the
corresponding projects' files, and then it is able to proceed to build
process step by step. Without Visual Studio .NET installed, you will need
to read the solution and project files manually to get the
compiler/linker/... options.

2. Visual Studio .NET also installs some components that are required to
develop some projects. For example, it installs the header/import library
files of MFC. We are not able to create Visual C++ MFC application without
MFC header/lib files.

Generally speaking, we build a solution on a developement system and deploy
the setup package to the product machine. It's strongly NOT recommend to
deploy the source file instead.

In addition, I suggest that you can also use Visual Installer instead of VS
NET to create a setup program. Visual Installer can be download from
Microsoft website at the following link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/tools/vsi11/default.aspx

Windows Installer Development Tools
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/msi/setup/w
indows_installer_development_tools.asp?frame=true

BTW, in the future, it would be best to post MSI questions in the following
newsgroup:
microsoft.public.platformsdk.msi

Please feel free to let me know if you have any problems or concerns.

Have a nice day!

Regards,

HuangTM
Microsoft Online Partner Support
MCSE/MCSD

Get Secure! -- www.microsoft.com/security
This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.

 

[Guest]

We've been through the same problem. We finally gave up and added Visual Studio onto our build machine
At least from the command line, the UI doesn't pop up

 

[Guest]

And you can run it from inside a CMD file.

 

[localhost]

OK, I guess I will have to install VS.NET 2003 on a standalone "build"
PC. I was under the impression that I could have the equivalent of
"make" (or "nmake") to build a C# solution.

Oh well.

Thanks all for the help.

 

[BanksySan]

I was under the impression that you could perform and functions without VS
that you could with it, it just might take you longer.

Is this just the case with C#?

Dave

 

[EP]

the basic issue is that the solution and project files are things that only
VS understands, when csc is used it does not take project inputs.