Adding dependencies to a setup project Win32 application Visual Studio

Question

Hi I am looking to create a setup project for my Win32 application developed using Visual Studio 2013. I have created the setup.exe using InstallShield However now i also need to add dependencies which should be installed along with the required application when setup.exe is run.

The dependencies are simply Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015.

I went through this article for creating the setup.exe for my application. But I did not find any documentation which directs me how to add dependencies to this installer.

I found this document which describes a walkthrough for adding dependencies but that is no more possible in Visual Studio 2013 as much as I am aware. Now we 'NEED' to use Install Shield. Correct me if I am wrong.

Please direct me to some documentation which will guide me to add dependencies to my setup project.

UPDATE

I found in the InstallShield Project Assistant an option to check for installation requirements. But it requires you to specify the directory to search the particular file. As far as I know the Visual C++ Redistributable package is not installed in any particular location but the only way to detect its presence is to check if the registry key is set to 1.

So instead of checking I'd rather always have the setup file to install the Visual C++ Redistributable package no matter it is present or no.

But even for that how do I go about it?

Answer 1

There might be other reasons you need to use InstallShield that I'm not aware of, but in the simple case of a C++ app that needs the runtime as a prerequisite, I'd use Visual Studio 2015 (Community Edition will do) and add the Installer project extension. The project properties lets you build a prerequisite installer (a setup.exe) and among the choices are the VC++ runtimes. That's just an exe that does its checks and installs if required.

I'm not sure how you got a VC 2015 C++ requirement while developing with VS 2013. Again, VS 2013 also has a community edition and an installer project extension that will install the VS 2013 C++ prerequisites.

The redistributable installers have their own checks to see if they need installing. I wouldn't expect InstallShield to require you to know the detection rules of a C++ runtime. that's a bit odd. There may be another setting where you just say C++ runtime required.