creating setup of vb2008

Question

I have developed as/w using acces and sqlserver 2008 and now trying to make a setup file. How could be the possible way?? I tried in VS2008 software and development. But after installing from the msi file and running the s/w it shows an error "Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0 provider is not registered” plz help

Answer 1

You have to do a few things to set up your application:

1. Install the .NET framework if required
2. Install SQL Server 2008 if required
3. Install your application
4. Define/configure the connection from your application to the SQL Server instance
5. Create your database/schema in the SQL Server instance.

Ignore the SQL Server problem for a moment, the easiest way to deal with the .NET framework and installing the application would be to use a setup project - which should be available from within VS.NET under Other Project Types|Setup and Deployment. There are hooks in there to give you options for installing dependencies - of which the .NET framework is one.

Ok, you have a tool to create setups (there are several others, eg I'm currently using WiX which I like so far, is very capable but can rapidly becomes complex) - the problem now is that the installer you need to build will depend on how and where your application is to be deployed. Do you want to ship a complete, self-contained, application on a disc? Is it to be downloaded internally within a business or distributed over the internet - each of these suggests a different set of packages at one end "everything" at the other you want the smallest possible pieces pulled down as required or perhaps even a different packaging method (eg clickonce).

Next up is SQL Server. You can get a redistributable package for SQL Server 2008 Express, so distributing it is not a problem however you have to determine if the user has an existing instance they want to user or if they want to install.

Once you've got an installed instance - you need to be able to create and to maintain (update) the database/schema within that instance. That I suggest you do using code (see here: How to create "embedded" SQL 2008 database file if it doesn't exist? ). Which brings us to another point, you not only have to be able to install the application the first time, but you need to make sure that a) you provide a means to uninstall the application and b) that you can neatly do an upgrade in place.

I hope there are enough pointers there to get you moving - in terms of testing this, Virtual Machines are your friend, they give you the capability to create multiple environments in which to test your deployment and the ability to quickly roll back to a clean environment to test again as its virtually impossible to properly test an installer on a dev box (I've found this out the hard way) as it will already have all the dependencies for your application installed.

Pick your tools and that should let you ask more focused questions.