Extremely Frustrated with VS2005 Integration

[Guardian_Bob]

So in trying to add Install Shield to a nightly build system I've encountered these errors over the last 5 hours:
When Visual Studio closes and loaded solution had an Install Shield project in it, Visual Studio crashes giving a non-zero exit code. If I load a solution without an Install Shield project everything is fine when closing.

Additionally, the ism file is checked out on load. Why?!? In a nightly build any popped up dialogs can halt the entire build. My example of this was running devenv.exe with a solution giving the clean command.

When trying to get msbuild to work, I could not get anywhere (errors about missing outdir) without applying the msbuild hotfix, and then I continue to get errors about No outputs for project. Furthermore, while the build is happening something pops up and takes focus.

If I load the solution I can build as expected, but theres a crash on exit halting my nightly builds due to the crash dialog. If I try msbuild, it won't build (same solution in both cases.)

As for the question as to why I'm using the Visual Studio integration, well why introduce yet another (probably buggy) tool into my build procedure? I want to limit my interfaces to minimize my code and possible errors.

[Guardian_Bob]

Turns out part of my problem with msbuild is the fact that paths in the project are relative to the solution hosting the project, which is INSANE. I can't have two solutions in different parts of the tree point to the same install shield project and expect it to work?!? Come on! I mean even Microsoft figured out that was a bad idea (which is why they have references saved on the project file for C# applications.)

[Guardian_Bob]

Oh and let me ask this question. If my target is Clean, meaning I want to clean the solution through msbuild, why does install shield build?

[Guardian_Bob]

So about the stealing focus while building, I figured out what is going on. Apparently the tool used to sign the executable has a GUI. So when it launches install shield quickly types in the info and hits ok.

The interesting part, you can click in a text box and it will type your private key into that box. Does anyone else see this as a major security issue?

[Guardian_Bob]

In the same vein as the last post, it seems this signing requires a person to be actively at the machine or something. If I disconnect my remote desktop, the whole build waits for me to log in again before it will sign and finish. WTF?!?

[Guardian_Bob]

So the issue with hung builds is supposed to go away if I use a pfx file (I'm trying it right now and will report on how it works); however, I have a problem with this set up still. If anyone gets my install shield project, they can easily extract my private key by replacing either the command line tools used or switching back to a spc/pvk and clicking in a text box. Why aren't these programs wrapped in another program which takes an encrypted/encoded form of the private key?

Basically, as it stands now, anyone who has access to the install shield project has my private key.

[Guardian_Bob]

The pfx file worked as expected, my nightly builds no longer hang.