INFO: Using the Visual Studio Installer with Visual FoxPro (242418)

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The Visual Studio Installer is available to registered users of Visual Studio or its component parts at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/vsi/default.asp. Installs are created through the Visual Studio shell, which will feel familiar to users of Visual Basic or Visual InterDev. Most of the components, though, will feel familiar to Visual FoxPro users. For instance, the Properties window is almost the same, and the Project Explorer is much like Visual FoxPro's Project Manager.

The Visual Studio installer also allows finer control over the installation process. You can add dialogs (such as Register User) and customize the appearance of the various dialogs. For example, you can choose not to show a copyright notice on the opening screen, or you can add a splash screen.

You will not want to use the Visual Studio Installer if your application requires a post-setup executable. The Windows Installer setup process treats everything as a transaction that can be rolled back if necessary. The post-setup executable is outside the knowledge of Windows Installer; therefore, Windows Installer cannot undo any changes the executable makes. For this reason, Visual Studio Installer does not support the use of a post-setup executable. It also does not support Microsoft Graph runtime installations. Visual Studio Installer does support DCOM and remote automation use, but it requires adding keys to the registry. The Visual FoxPro 6 Setup Wizard is more flexible in this case.