Need help building installer with MS Visual Studio .NET 2003 with CV/i 6.0 apps

[JJB]

I'm attempting to use Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 to build a Deployment Project (an installer) to distribute a set of applications, some of which use LabWindows CV/i.

I have a current CV/i Distribution kit that installs the apps, but there are registry entries and non-CV/i apps to install.

By reading the CV/i documentation and inspecting what I've done so far to Build a Distribution Kit, I've included in my project the following merge modules from C:\Program Files\National Instruments\MeasurementStudio\CVI\redist:
ActiveX Container.msm
cvi_lvrt.msm
cvirte.msm
cwui_ocx.msm
instrsup.msm
msvcrt.msm
NIMesaDLL.msm

When I attempt to build the solution, I get the
following warnings:

WARNING: Unable to find module dependency with signature 'MFC42.51D569E2_8A28_11D2_B962_006097C4DE24'
WARNING: Unable to find module dependency with signature 'COMCTL32.3207D1B4_80E5_11D2_B95D_006097C4DE24'
WARNING: Unable to find module dependency with signature 'NIMesaDLL.6FE8CEDD_964F_47A2_8F23_5A607953B235'
WARNING: Unable to find module dependency with signature 'OLEAUT32.8C0C59A0_7DC8_11D2_B95D_006097C4DE24'
WARNING: Unable to find module dependency with signature 'MSVCRT.51D569E0_8A28_11D2_B962_006097C4DE24'
WARNING: Unable to find module dependency with signature 'MSVCRT.51D569E0_8A28_11D2_B962_006097C4DE24'
WARNING: Unable to find module dependency with signature 'NICommonPaths.FCBAC8A7_966B_444C_9FF9_6187CF792CF0'

and then the following errors:

ERROR: Unable to import merge module 'cwui_ocx'
ERROR: Unable to import merge module 'cvirte'

Is there any hope of making this work, or am I missing something perfectly obvious ?


Thanks.

[jlaney]

Hello,

Let me see if I can help. You will need to find the MSMs from within the CVI\Redist location. They should be close to what is listed above. NiMesa.msm and NIPaths.msm are the ones that are ours. The other MSMs should be there and if not you can get them from Microsoft or someone like Wise. They are common merge modules for VC applications.

The errors you are getting about not being able to import the merge module is due to a change in the merge module template that VS.NET can not handle. We do not use the Complus table so there is a workaround. You can open up the cwui_ocx and the cvirte in Orca (or any MSI table editor) and delete the empty Complus table. Then they should merge properly. If you can't do this let me know and I can send you fixed
up MSMs.

Hope this helps and makes sense.

Jeff
NI

[JJB]

Answering my own question, I ended up using the free Microsoft Visual Installer 1.1, downloaded here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/tools/vsi11/default.aspx

Worked fine with the current CV/i .msm files - it must be back-rev'd from newer MSI technology so it still works ;).

Good parts: free, works with older CV/i .msm files, comes with files and shortcuts editor, UI editor, registry editor, and file associations editor, install conditions editing, etc.

Bad parts: cannot import .reg files (must hand-edit registry entries), very limited UI customization, limited number of prefabbed dialogs to add, lacks full customization, it's free only if you are a licensed customer of any Visual Studio 6.0 Professional or Enterprise editio
n tool, including:

• Visual Studio 6.0, Professional and Enterprise edition
• Visual Basic 6.0, Professional and Enterprise edition
• Visual C++ 6.0, Professional and Enterprise edition
• Visual InterDev� 6.0 Professional edition
• Visual J++ 6.0 Professional edition
• Visual FoxPro® 6.0 Professional edition

Overall, for a simple installer, it works just fine.