InstallShield Limited Edition for Visual Studio 2010/2012 Did you know that there is better tool to create setup projects in Visual Studio 2010/2012 compared to build-in simple one? Welcome to InstallShield, which available for free (limited edition) for every Visual Studio owner. Converting or Importing Visual Studio Projects into InstallShield Projects. InstallShield 2015 Express Edition. Visual Studio includes limited support for creating setup and merge module projects. InstallShield lets you do the following so that you can use the advanced features and functionality in InstallShield to create installations:. InstallShield Limited Edition for Visual Studio - Download. When the download completes, run the downloaded file to install the product. Note: If Visual Studio is open when you install InstallShield Limited Edition, Visual Studio will need to be restarted after installation has finished. VB.NET and C# Tutorials: How to Create or add a Installer (Setup.Exe) Wizard VB.NET or C# Project in Visual Studio 2015, VS 2010, VS 2012, VS 2013 using InstallShield Limited Edition for Visual Studio? If you are interested in using the free version of InstallShield called InstallShield LE with Visual Studio, you should know that it does not ship by default with Visual Studio. In fact, if you go into Visual Studio and create a new project type under 'Other Project Types' - Setup and Deployment, you will only see an icon that says 'Enable.

InstallShield 2015 Express Edition

Visual Studio includes limited support for creating setup and merge module projects. InstallShield lets you do the following so that you can use the advanced features and functionality in InstallShield to create installations:

•	Import a Visual Studio setup or merge module project (.vdproj) into an Express project (.ise). During the import process, you can choose to import or ignore certain settings in the Visual Studio project.

•	Convert a Visual Studio setup project to an Express project.

The import and conversion functionality enables you to create InstallShield installation projects that contain the same data and settings that were in your Visual Studio projects.

Note: If your Visual Studio project contains one or more project outputs, you can use InstallShield to import that Visual Studio project into an InstallShield project; however, InstallShield cannot convert that Visual Studio project into an InstallShield project.

Edition: The Premier and Professional editions additionally let you convert a Visual Studio merge module project to an InstallShield merge module project; this is necessary if you want to build a merge module for consumption in other projects.

The following versions of Visual Studio are supported:

•	Visual Studio 2010

•	Visual Studio 2008

•	Visual Studio 2005

•	Visual Studio .NET 2003

•	Visual Studio .NET

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Benefits of Using an InstallShield Project Instead of a Visual Studio Project

If you convert your Visual Studio setup project to an InstallShield Express project, you can use the features in InstallShield to customize your project.

Following is a list of a few of the tasks that you can perform in InstallShield projects but not in Visual Studio projects:

•	Manage features.

•	Manage IIS Web sites, applications, and virtual directories.

•

Create DLL, executable file, VBScript, and JScript custom actions that use a source file that is either stored in Binary table of the .msi database, or installed with product. Executable file custom actions also support a source file that already exists on the target system. (With Visual Studio, all custom actions must be installed with the product.)

•	Add billboards that are displayed during file transfer.

•	Create shortcuts to pre-existing files on a target system.

•	Manage COM+ applications.

Import Process

InstallShield lets you import a Visual Studio setup or merge module project into an InstallShield Express project.

Note: If the Visual Studio setup or merge module project that you want to import into an InstallShield project contains one or more project outputs, the InstallShield project must be in the same Visual Studio solution that contains the Visual Studio setup or merge module project and all of its project dependencies.

In order to import a Visual Studio project that contains project outputs, you must be using InstallShield from within Visual Studio. If your InstallShield project is open in InstallShield, but not from within Visual Studio, and you try to import a Visual Studio project that contains project outputs into the InstallShield project, an error occurs.

To import a Visual Studio project (.vdproj) into an Express project (.ise):

1.	Create or open the Express project.

2.	On the Project menu, click the Visual Studio Deployment Project Wizard button.

3.	Complete the panels of the Visual Studio Deployment Project Wizard.

InstallShield imports the Visual Studio project into your open Express project based on the settings that you configured in the wizard. As InstallShield imports the project, it displays the status of the project import in the Output window. The Output window shows each step of the conversion process, and it lists any conversion errors and warnings. InstallShield imports all of the files, registry entries, and other application data from your Visual Studio project into the Always Install feature of your InstallShield project.

Conversion Process

If you use InstallShield to convert a Visual Studio setup project, InstallShield creates an InstallShield Express project (.ise).

To convert a Visual Studio project (.vdproj) to an InstallShield project (.ise):

1.	Open InstallShield.

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2.	On the File menu, click Open. The Open dialog box opens.

3.	In the Files of type box, select Visual Studio Setup Projects (*.vdproj).

4.	Browse to the location of the Visual Studio project that you want to open, and select the project file.

5.	Click the Open button.

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InstallShield creates an InstallShield project based on the settings in the Visual Studio project. InstallShield stores the .ise file in the same folder as the .vdproj file. As InstallShield creates the .ise file, it displays the status of the project conversion in the Output window. The Output window shows each step of the conversion process, and it lists any conversion errors and warnings.

Once the conversion process finishes successfully, the new InstallShield project is displayed in InstallShield.

Post-Import and Post-Conversion Tasks

Prerequisite Tasks

Visual Studio lets you add one or more predefined prerequisites to one or more configurations in a Visual Studio setup project. The import process in InstallShield attempts to convert all of the prerequisites in all of the configurations to equivalent InstallShield prerequisites. If InstallShield does not include a corresponding InstallShield prerequisite, warning -9071 occurs, alerting you that the prerequisite could not be converted.

Edition: InstallShield Premier Edition and InstallShield Professional Edition include the InstallShield Prerequisite Editor, a tool that enables you to define custom InstallShield prerequisites and to edit settings for any existing InstallShield prerequisites. If you have either one of these editions of InstallShield, you would be able to create your own InstallShield prerequisites that would be launched during your product’s installation.

In addition, InstallShield Premier Edition and InstallShield Professional Edition enable you to set up release flags to build different versions of an installation—such as Evaluation, Debug, Standard, and Advanced—from a single project. These editions let you include and exclude InstallShield prerequisites at build time, depending on the release flags that you have selected. For example, if you are creating a debug version of your product and you do not want to include some of the InstallShield prerequisites in the build, you can assign a release flag to the appropriate InstallShield prerequisites and then specify which release flags to include in the release.

User-Interface Tasks

The import and conversion processes do not incorporate the dialogs from a Visual Studio project into the InstallShield project. Once you have imported or converted your project, you can use the Dialogs view in InstallShield to configure settings for the dialogs in your project.

Language Tasks

If you imported a Visual Studio project into an InstallShield project and the following conditions exist, InstallShield replaces the existing string entry values in your project with default string entry values for the language of your Visual Studio project:

•	You indicate in the Visual Studio Deployment Project Wizard that you would like to import the language of the Visual Studio project.

•	The language of your Visual Studio project does not match the language in your InstallShield project. (In Visual Studio, the Localization property indicates the project’s language.)

For example, if you indicate in the Visual Studio Deployment Project Wizard that you would like to import the language of the Visual Studio project, if the language of your InstallShield project is Spanish, and if the language of your Visual Studio project is German, InstallShield replaces the Spanish run-time strings in your project with the default German translations. Thus, if you edit a string entry value by revising a setting such as the Publisher setting in the General Information view, and then you indicate in the wizard that you want to import the language of a Visual Studio project, InstallShield overwrites the value of the Publisher setting—as well as values for other settings—with the default German string entry values.

Therefore, if you change the project language while importing your Visual Studio project, review the settings in the General Information view and the Text and Messages view, and modify the string entry values if appropriate.

.NET Installer Class Tasks

If your Visual Studio project includes a .NET installer class custom action, InstallShield configures the .NET installer class information for the .NET assembly during the conversion process. (InstallShield selects the Installer Class check box on the COM & .NET settings tab of the File Properties dialog box to indicate that the assembly’s Install, Commit, Rollback, and Uninstall methods will be called at the appropriate times at run time.) InstallShield does not include support for the Condition property of a .NET installer class custom action in Visual Studio. Therefore, if your Visual Studio project contains a .NET installer class custom action that has a condition, you may want to use the Features view in InstallShield to create a condition for the feature that contains the .NET assembly after you have converted your project.

Additional Tasks

You can also use the other views in InstallShield to make additional changes to your project.

Note: Visual Studio lets you specify a directory path that contains multiple formatted properties, such as [ProgramFilesFolder][Manufacturer][ProductName], for the application folder. Visual Studio projects use a directory custom action to resolve the path at run time. However, InstallShield does not support this type of directory path. Therefore, InstallShield resolves the path during the import and conversion processes and uses the INSTALLDIR property for the path.

See Also

InstallShield 2015 Express Edition Help Library June 2015

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