Considerations for Choosing Visual Studio Installer

Microsoft^® Visual Studio^® Installer is a new tool for authoring Microsoft^® Windows^®installer package (.msi) files within the Microsoft development environment. With Visual Studio Installer, you can harness the power of the Windows installer and take advantage of several enhancements to previous Visual Studio setup authoring tools.

Visual Studio Installer is one of several installation program authoring tools in Visual Studio, including:

• Visual Basic® Package and Deployment Wizard.

• Visual Studio 6.0 solution building and packaging features.

Summary of Comparisons

The following table presents a summary of the advanced capabilities of Visual Studio Installer in comparison with other installation authoring tools available with Visual Studio. More detail about these comparisons is presented after the table.

*You can customize Microsoft^® Visual Basic^® Package and Deployment Wizard projects, and extend their control of an installation, by changing or extending Visual Basic source code.

Note that Visual Studio Installer is the only choice for authoring Windows Installer package files in the Microsoft development environment with an intuitive, Windows-based graphical interface. Furthermore, with Visual Studio Installer, you have extensive control over the installation configuration without having to work with raw installation data, tables, and scripts.

Visual Studio Installer and the Microsoft Windows Installer

A key advantage of Visual Studio Installer over previous Visual Basic and Visual Studio setup authoring tools is Visual Studio Installer allows you to create installation programs that leverage the Windows installer. With previous tools, you were limited to authoring traditional scripted setup programs.

Data-Driven Installations

Windows installer package files are based on a data-driven installation model, as opposed to a procedure-driven (setup script) model. Specifically, a data-driven Windows installer package includes complete information about what to install and leaves complex questions about how to install an application up to the Windows operating system. This design helps ensure the same application data is installed no matter how the procedures to support multiple system configurations and user preferences may vary.

Data-driven installations provide these benefits over previous setup program technologies:

• Increased stability of installations and uninstallations.

• Increased ease-of-use for your user, because the operating system can make many of the installation decisions at run time.

• The ability to advertise a new application on a user's desktop, without physically installing application files until the user requests the application.

• Installation of certain application features only when a user requests them.

  Note   This release of Visual Studio Installer does not support the on-demand feature installation capability of the Windows installer.

• Application self-repair — that is, the ability of a malfunctioning application to check installation data for discovery and replacement of any missing or corrupt files.

• The ability to perform a rollback installation, if necessary, to return a target machine to its pre-installation state.

For more information about the capabilities of the Windows installer, see The New Microsoft Windows Installer.

New Installation Capabilities

Visual Studio Installer is a more complete and powerful tool for authoring application installations than those previously available in Visual Studio, making it easier to manage the intricate aspects of application installations. With the intuitive Windows-based graphical interface, you can manage installation tasks easily, including:

• Folder and file placement. You can specify installation folder and file locations on the target machine.

• Component management. You can create, modify, and specify installation conditions and locations for installer components.

• Shortcuts. You can create file and folder shortcuts and specify where to place them on the target machine.

• File associations. Establish document types, file extensions, and verbs created during the installation and specify the associations between them. You can also establish associations between MIME types and verbs.

• Registry entries. You can specify registry keys and values to create during the installation.

• User interface dialogs. You can select and to some extent customize the user interface dialogs displayed during installation.

For more information about the capabilities of Visual Studio Installer, see Introducing Visual Studio Installer.

Comparing Visual Studio Installer and the Visual Basic Package and Deployment Wizard

Visual Studio Installer and the Visual Basic Package and Deployment Wizard are tools that accomplish similar tasks. Both tools can assist you in authoring installation programs for your Visual Basic application. In choosing which to use, you should consider:

• The type of installation program you want to create.

• Control of the installation configuration.

• Packaging of multiple projects.

• Support for Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) installations.

• Application deployment.

The following table summarizes the differences between the two tools. More detail about some of these differences is presented after the table.

Type of Installation Program

With Visual Studio Installer, you can develop Windows installer-based installation packages, rather than traditional procedure-based setup scripts. For more information about the benefits of Windows installer packages, see Visual Studio Installer and the Microsoft Windows Installer.

Control of the Installation Configuration

The Visual Basic Package and Deployment Wizard provides a quick and easy way to write a setup program; however, control of installation configuration specifics is limited and requires additional tools. To gain more control of the installation configuration for a Visual Basic setup program, you must change the source code in the Visual Basic Setup Toolkit.

In contrast, basic functionality built into Visual Studio Installer provides extensive control over installation configurations — such as target machine file, target folder location, and registry entries — in a single tool. You use installation program templates to create your installer program, accept many installation defaults, and pull in project outputs and dependencies necessary for the installation — all in one easy step.

Four graphical-interface editors in Visual Studio Installer provide an efficient way to manipulate and customize many aspects of the installation, including:

• File installation and folder hierarchy on target machines.

• The installation's run-time user interface.

• Registry actions completed during the installation.

• File extension and MIME type associations established during the installation.

For more information about the Visual Studio Installer project templates and graphical editors, see Introducing Visual Studio Installer.

Capacity to Package Projects

With the Visual Basic Package and Deployment Wizard, you can create a setup program to install a single Visual Basic project.

With Visual Studio Installer, you can create installation programs for any programming language. Because it is part of the Microsoft development environment, you can use Visual Studio Installer to create installation programs for any of these Visual languages:

• Visual Basic.

• Microsoft^® Visual C++^®.

• Microsoft^® Visual J++^®.

Also, Visual Studio Installer can create an installation program that contains outputs and dependencies from multiple Visual language projects — for example, an installer for an application that contains Visual Basic and Visual J++ files, outputs, and dependencies.

Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) Support

The Visual Basic Package and Deployment Wizard provides direct support for packaging applications that incorporate Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) features. Visual Studio Installer does not provide such direct DCOM support but does allow DCOM installation through use of the Registry editor.

For more information about the Visual Basic Package and Deployment Wizard support for DCOM installations, search in the MSDN™ Library Visual Basic 6.0 online documentation for the "Packaging Features" topic. For more information about the Visual Studio Installer Registry Editor, see Registry Editor.

Application Deployment

Within the Visual Basic Package and Deployment Wizard, you can deploy your packaged application to its distribution media, target machine, or Web site.

Within Visual Studio Installer, you can specify your distribution media, package your installation program on it, and specify where to install application files on the target machine. Furthermore, you can deploy any Visual Studio Installer package with the Visual Studio 6.0 solution deployment tools.

For more information about deployment automation with the Visual Basic Package and Deployment Wizard, search in the MSDN Library Visual Basic 6.0 online documentation for "Solution Deployment with the Wizard." For more information about application deployment with Visual Studio 6.0, search in the MSDN Library Visual Studio 6.0 online documentation for the "Solution Deployment Reference" topic.

Visual Studio Installer and Visual Studio 6.0 Solution Building and Packaging

As with previous Visual Studio setup authoring tools, Visual Studio Installer works with the Visual Studio 6.0 build, package, and deployment tools and is tightly integrated in the Microsoft development environment.

The important difference between Visual Studio Installer and Visual Studio 6.0 setup authoring tools is with Visual Studio Installer, you can create Windows installer packages; with Visual Studio 6.0 setup authoring tools, you are limited to creating traditional application setup programs.

Furthermore, Visual Studio Installer gives you extended capabilities to control the installation by providing tools to create and modify installation elements including registry actions, file shortcuts, and file associations. Visual Studio Installer also makes it easy to customize an installation for different target machines.

Visual Studio Installer is subject to one limitation in the Microsoft development environment. Specifically, Visual Studio Installer does not provide for installing or managing Visual J++ application installation packages with the Java Package Manager. However, Visual Studio Installer can create installation packages for standalone Visual J++ Windows 32-bit applications.

For more information about deploying Visual J++ applications with the Java Package Manager, search in the MSDN Library Visual Studio 6.0 online documentation for the "Cabinet Packaging" and "Solution Deployment Reference" topics.