No Registry View Information after Adding a .Dll

[Superfreak3]

Hi all,

We just purchased InstallShield 2010 and will begin using it after our next big release sometime early in '10. We're currently having a problem with files not registering properly following installation using a package built with Wise.

I'm trying to figure out what may be missing. I'm trying everything... RegAsm with the /regfile option, Tallow from the WiX toolkit, etc, but I'm just getting more confused.

I then thought to myself, lets give InstallShield a try to see what it pulls in. I added the file to a template, built the install and there is nothing pulled into the Registry!!! How do I get this information in there. Is there some other extraction method that must be used and then a .reg file imported?

Please help!!

[mumbles]

1. What operating system?
2. What do you mean by registering? As in, regsvr32? or in the gac or what?

[Superfreak3]

1. I'm building on Win XP SP3.

2. The file is just dumped to a Program Files\OurCompany\OurApp\Client\PlugIns folder and it should be registered. RegAsm since .NET.

The assembly has a Runtime Version of 1.1.4322. Versions of Framework currently on build machine: 1.1, 2.0 SP2, 3.0 SP2, 3.5 SP1.

[mumbles]

Well, what i do may not be the best way, but i'll tell you how i do it.

I create a custom action with installscript. I first ensure the framework regasm.exe is there. Once i know that i get the path of it. (Just in case). I build the string

C:\windows\...\..\Regasm.exe "C:\Program Files\bla\bla.dll"

and run that.

I can give you a snippet of our code if you need it...

[Superfreak3]

That's not the recommended way of doing it and that is what I'm trying to get away from. We do that currently.

Is there anyone out there that can tell me if there is registry info scanning and addition to template with InstallShield 2010? I seem to remember that being the case with releases such as Developer 8. If not, we just wasted a whole lot of money!

I couldn't imagine that one would have to use RegAsm Custom Actions to register files in an installation.

Oh, and I guess I should mention this is a Basic MSI project.

[mumbles]

Superfreak3 wrote:
That's not the recommended way of doing it and that is what I'm trying to get away from. We do that currently.

Well hell, i'm right on board with you then. I'd love an answer to that. We used to use InstallUtil.exe and that wasn't any easier. We've been using it this way for 2 years without any issues until Windows 7 and Vista are now becoming the norm in the financial world.

[Superfreak3]

Yeah, Microsoft is really making this world a mess... safer, maybe but more complex I should say.

There's got to be a way of pulling that stuff into IS or it's basically useless. One could write their own installer if that were the case and just generate a giant .reg file for anything that had to be added to the Registry.

I guess its time to hit up support!

[Superfreak3]

Haven't heard back from support on this yet.

Not getting any more comments in this thread is making me nervous also. Is there anyone out there that gets all their registration information for assemblies, etc scanned properly into their .ism/msi? If not, how are you gals/guys doing it?

I would think this is the biggest or one of the biggest pieces to an installation authoring tool and would think that IS handles it or most of the process to some extent.

[Superfreak3]

I did hear back from support and they told me to set the .NET interop option on the component(s) in question and to check the resulting .msi after build for the registry/assembly information.

It did appear in there, but there was still no information in the development environment's Registry or Direct Editor views.

Does anyone know if this sounds right. I would have thought that the registry information, after scanning, would be visible in the development environment as well. That is how I remember previous products to be I think (Developer 8, for example).

If this is the case that is, well, dumb. I can't imagine that with the vast user base that InstallShield has that this is not a concern.

Does anyone have any experience, guidance, suggestions, to lend. Its looking more and more like we made a bad choice and I'm going to be under the gun soon to get stuff done with IS. Am I missing a setting of some sort to allow this stuff to be visible in the IDE?

[calvin940]

I am having an issue with adding assemblies to the GAC as well as generating the type libraries. I cannot get either to work.

I know there was an issue (Q106608) with generating tlb files in 12 with a work around, but I would have expected that to be resolved at this point and I just plain don't like the work around anyhow.

For the .NET Scan at Build options for a component, the help says:

Dependencies and Properties: At build time, InstallShield scans the key file of this component for .NET dependencies and properties. InstallShield populates the MsiAssembly and MsiAssemblyName tables with the assembly properties, as needed. In addition, InstallShield adds the missing files, components, and merge modules that are required by the .NET assembly to the release.

The build-time scan does not scan the key file of a component if the key file is not a .NET assembly file.

Note: To install an assembly to the Global Assembly Cache, select the Properties Only option or the Dependencies and Properties option.

I set it to Dependencies and Properties and it doesn't work. I set the .NET COM Interop to Yes, but no .tlb file generated.

I cannot understand what I am doing wrong with my components. I even went through the component wizard itself first to make sure I wasn't starting off incorrectly, but again not getting the expected results.

Any help would be much appreciated.