Build application without installing components

[pbrown]

Is it possible to build a measurement studio application on a build server (that also manages to generate an msi package) without installing the components on that machine in the first place ?

I have included the dll's in the project source tree (and there is also a licenses.licx) and referenced these files, and whilst the application will build it won't run. I get an

NationalInstruments.UI.WindowsForms.WaveformGraph is unlicensed. exception.

This is mainly a curiosity at the moment, but longer term it would be good if we could use a build server to run the unit tests etc.

Thanks

Paul

[TheWay]

Hi Paul,

I'm not sure if I'm entirely clear on what you're trying to achieve.  Are you trying to build a Measurement Studio application on a server without installing Measurement Studio on the machine?  It sounds like you managed to build a MStudio application but were not able to run it.  I'm surprised that you could even build it as I would've thought you needed to install MStudio for that.

Also, why can't you install MStudio on both machines?  If you have one single seat license, you should be able to install it on up to three machines as long as you are only using only one instance at a time. 

Way S. 

NI UK Applications Engineer

[pbrowntwi]

I don't want to install it as I'd like to keep the build machine as clean as possible (Only installing VS2005 if possible) and have everything come from source control onto that machine so that I know everything that is required is in the source tree. This would also help in future when there are different versions of the libraries which will potentially break earlier ones.

Paul

[TheWay]

Hi Paul,

What version of Measurement Studio do you have installed?  We only started supporting VS2005 with MS 8.0.1 and above.  If you are using an older version, that might be why you are getting the unlicensed control exception.  Here is a link for a discussion on the unlicensed control exceptions:

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=232&message.id=4975&requireLogin=False

I hope that helps.

Way

[pbrowntwi]

That's the point, I don't want to have to install a version on each machine every time there's an update, I'm happy to install on the main dev machine, but I'd rather not install on the other machines that may have to build the application (backups in case something goes wrong with the main machine).

The dll's I'm using are

NationalInstruments.Analysis.Enterprise    8.1.20.235
NationalInstruments.Common                     8.1.20.235
NationalInstruments.Common.Native         8.1.20.235
NationalInstruments.UI                                 8.1.20.377
NationalInstruments.UI.Styles3D                  8.1.20.377
NationalInstruments.UI.WindowsForms      8.1.20.377

This is just one project I work on so there are potentially lots of other dll's too and to have to install each and every one on a server (including past dependencies) just makes it harder that it seems that it should be to build up a dev machine.

Paul

[TheWay]

Hi Paul,

Installing MS8 also installs the license files for the .NET class libraries and not only the necessary DLL files.  The unlicensed control exceptions stem from not having those licenses installed.  

I hope that helps.

Way