|  | distributing activex which needs installer |  | |
| | | tuvman |  |
| Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 2:20 pm Post subject: distributing activex which needs installer |  |
| |  | |
I just finished writing an activeX in .net. The ActiveX requires that various other COM components be installed before running. We found that IE already has a mechanism for running an installer if an ActiveX is not installed by using the codebase parameter.
<object name="secondobj" style='display:none' id='TestActivex' classid='CLSID:A47C22B1-3CC3-45bc-801E-3FCC4FFD3E45' codebase='DownloadDeployer.cab#version=1,0,0,0'> </object>
The docs say that the codebase parameter usually points to a single install file. Usually it's a CAB file which unlikes EXEs cannot download the .net framework on demand or execute post install actions like executing the script which gives the activex fulltrust.
It seems that we can't have codebase point to the setup.exe because then it would be missing the .msi file (and if we point to the .msi it would need the exe file to download the prerequisites!) We are researching a way where the CAB would include the exe,msi and the INF file which describes the cab file would execute the EXE after the cab is extracted.
Is this a good solution, or is there another simpler way to prompt the user to run the installer the first time they visit the webpage? |
| |
| | | rob^_^ |  |
| Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:40 pm Post subject: Re: distributing activex which needs installer |  |
| |  | |
Hi tuvman,
There is a CAB SDK available on your MSDN subscription if you have one. (I assume you or your company would have a valid MSDN subscription as you are developing with VS.)
Go to the MSDN downloads page and look in the SDK's section.
There is also a MSI SDK from memory.
Regards. "tuvman" <tuvman@gmail.com> wrote in message news:729a4d4b-62c1-4d75-a4a1-98254d509854@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: | I just finished writing an activeX in .net. The ActiveX requires that various other COM components be installed before running. We found that IE already has a mechanism for running an installer if an ActiveX is not installed by using the codebase parameter.
object name="secondobj" style='display:none' id='TestActivex' classid='CLSID:A47C22B1-3CC3-45bc-801E-3FCC4FFD3E45' codebase='DownloadDeployer.cab#version=1,0,0,0' /object
The docs say that the codebase parameter usually points to a single install file. Usually it's a CAB file which unlikes EXEs cannot download the .net framework on demand or execute post install actions like executing the script which gives the activex fulltrust.
It seems that we can't have codebase point to the setup.exe because then it would be missing the .msi file (and if we point to the .msi it would need the exe file to download the prerequisites!) We are researching a way where the CAB would include the exe,msi and the INF file which describes the cab file would execute the EXE after the cab is extracted.
Is this a good solution, or is there another simpler way to prompt the user to run the installer the first time they visit the webpage? |
|
| |
|
|