Automated Build Scripts
[font="times new roman"]Hi Guys & Gals,
I have a question regarding automated scripts (forgive me if I have the wrong area for this post)
I basically need something that will help me create an automated build of several MSIs we currently do manually. I don't care about the changes needed in the IDE, we can do that manually, but its for another team, so they can basically drop files into a source / media folder and click a simple script that will go ahead and build the exe's /msi's automatically, without having to open the InstallShield (v12 Pro) IDE for every build.
We had something similar a few years back (before I took on the role) that built the apps, but was using IS6.3 and it was basically calling the .ipr using a batch file.
Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks.
I have a question regarding automated scripts (forgive me if I have the wrong area for this post)
I basically need something that will help me create an automated build of several MSIs we currently do manually. I don't care about the changes needed in the IDE, we can do that manually, but its for another team, so they can basically drop files into a source / media folder and click a simple script that will go ahead and build the exe's /msi's automatically, without having to open the InstallShield (v12 Pro) IDE for every build.
We had something similar a few years back (before I took on the role) that built the apps, but was using IS6.3 and it was basically calling the .ipr using a batch file.
Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks.
0 Comments
[ + ] Show comments
Answers (1)
Please log in to answer
Posted by:
jmcfadyen
16 years ago
Get your hands on WiX and MSBuild or Nant.
MSBuild and Nant give you the ability to automate the file copy / source safe type extraction into folders of your desired choice.
From there you can craft a WiX script which will convert a directory into an MSI.
By deafult MSBuild does not support WiX so you will need to get your hands on the Microsoft SDC task list which will extend the functionality of the default MSBuild capability.
WiX uses two commandline utils you will be interested in.
Light.exe and Candle.exe
MSBuild custom tasks access this functionality using the following MSbuild tasks
CompileMsi
LinkMsi
In order to 100% automate this we have written some C# code which converts a directory structure into a WiX fragment file allowing you to point MSBuild at a directory and the result is a compiled MSI.
If you need any more help let me know ..
John
MSBuild and Nant give you the ability to automate the file copy / source safe type extraction into folders of your desired choice.
From there you can craft a WiX script which will convert a directory into an MSI.
By deafult MSBuild does not support WiX so you will need to get your hands on the Microsoft SDC task list which will extend the functionality of the default MSBuild capability.
WiX uses two commandline utils you will be interested in.
Light.exe and Candle.exe
MSBuild custom tasks access this functionality using the following MSbuild tasks
CompileMsi
LinkMsi
In order to 100% automate this we have written some C# code which converts a directory structure into a WiX fragment file allowing you to point MSBuild at a directory and the result is a compiled MSI.
If you need any more help let me know ..
John
Rating comments in this legacy AppDeploy message board thread won't reorder them,so that the conversation will remain readable.
