Hi there,
We faced the same issue a few years ago.
The assembly precompilation during installation is a buggy feature that has not been fixed since it was integrated in InstallShield.
We ended up implementing our own mechanism to queue the assemblies in the ngen queue. So we now have a simple way to add components to a list of assemblies that will be added to the precompilation queue. If we want to precompile one assembly that we install, all we need to do is add it to one custom table.
Here is a brief description:
It took me a while to implement it, but it was worth it, as I can now simply add or remove assemblies to the precompilation list by adding rows to the NGenAssembly table.
I wish the InstallShield team had thought of such a mechanism instead of creating buggy custom actions.
We faced the same issue a few years ago.
The assembly precompilation during installation is a buggy feature that has not been fixed since it was integrated in InstallShield.
We ended up implementing our own mechanism to queue the assemblies in the ngen queue. So we now have a simple way to add components to a list of assemblies that will be added to the precompilation queue. If we want to precompile one assembly that we install, all we need to do is add it to one custom table.
Here is a brief description:
- Add an NGenAssembly table.
The key column is "Component_" which points to the first column of the "Component" table.
The other columns nearly map 1:1 to the options of ngen.exe
- For installation
- Add a custom action (scheduled for immediate execution) that iterates through this table, and add all assemblies to a list with the relevant options for ngen.
- Add a custom action (scheduled for deferred execution) which uses the list you previously created. This custom action will actually call ngen with the relevant options for every listed item.
- Add a custom action (scheduled for rollback execution) which remove the assemblies from the ngen queue. This is needed because you need to be able to rollback any action that modified the target system.
- Add a custom action (scheduled for immediate execution) that iterates through this table, and add all assemblies to a list with the relevant options for ngen.
- For deinstallation
- Create 3 custom actions that do nearly the opposite from the ones above.
- Create 3 custom actions that do nearly the opposite from the ones above.
It took me a while to implement it, but it was worth it, as I can now simply add or remove assemblies to the precompilation list by adding rows to the NGenAssembly table.
I wish the InstallShield team had thought of such a mechanism instead of creating buggy custom actions.
