Commands That Must Be Run After Installation
If your installation program supports Visual Studio versions earlier than Visual Studio 2010, it must notify Visual Studio of the introduction and removal of your VSPackage by running devenv.exe /setup after your VSPackage has been installed or removed. Your installer must run this setup step for every version of Visual Studio (earlier than Visual Studio 2010) it supports.
Notes
It is not necessary to run devenv.exe /setup when the only Visual Studio version your installer supports is Visual Studio 2010. For more information about how to install extensions for Visual Studio 2010, see Visual Studio Extension Deployment.
Finding devenv.exe
You can locate each version's devenv.exe from registry values that Visual Studio installers write, using the RegLocator Table and AppSearch Table to store the registry values as properties. For more information, see Detecting System Requirements.
RegLocator table rows to locate devenv.exe from different versions of Visual Studio
Signature_ |
Root |
Key |
Name |
Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
RL_DevenvExe_2002 |
2 |
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0\Setup\VS |
EnvironmentPath |
2 |
RL_DevenvExe_2003 |
2 |
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\Setup\VS |
EnvironmentPath |
2 |
RL_DevenvExe_2005 |
2 |
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Setup\VS |
EnvironmentPath |
2 |
RL_DevenvExe_2008 |
2 |
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\Setup\VS |
EnvironmentPath |
2 |
AppSearch table rows for corresponding RegLocator table rows
Property |
Signature_ |
|---|---|
DEVENV_EXE_2002 |
RL_DevenvExe_2002 |
DEVENV_EXE_2003 |
RL_DevenvExe_2003 |
DEVENV_EXE_2005 |
RL_DevenvExe_2005 |
DEVENV_EXE_2008 |
RL_DevenvExe_2008 |
For example, the Visual Studio installer writes the registry value of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\Setup\VS\EnvironmentPath as C:\VS2008\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe, a complete path to the executable the installer must run.
Note Because the RegLocator Type column is 2, it is not necessary to specify additional version information in the Signature Table.
Running devenv.exe
After the AppSearch standard action runs in the installer, each property in the AppSearch table has a value pointing to the devenv.exe file for the corresponding version of Visual Studio. If any of the specified registry values are not present — because that version of Visual Studio is not installed — the specified property is set to null.
Windows Installer supports running an executable to which a property points through custom action type 50. The custom action should include the in-script execution options, msidbCustomActionTypeInScript (1024) and msidbCustomActionTypeCommit (512), to ensure that the VSPackage has been successfully installed before integrating it into Visual Studio. For more information, see CustomAction Table and Custom Action In-Script Execution Options.
Custom actions of type 50 specify the property containing the executable as the value of the Source column and command-line arguments in the Target column.
CustomAction table rows to run devenv.exe
Action |
Type |
Source |
Target |
|---|---|---|---|
CA_RunDevenv2002 |
1586 |
DEVENV_EXE_2002 |
/setup |
CA_RunDevenv2003 |
1586 |
DEVENV_EXE_2003 |
/setup |
CA_RunDevenv2005 |
1586 |
DEVENV_EXE_2005 |
/setup |
CA_RunDevenv2008 |
1586 |
DEVENV_EXE_2008 |
/setup |
Custom actions must be authored into the InstallExecuteSequence table to schedule them for execution during the installation. Use the corresponding property in each row of the Condition column to prevent the custom action from being run if that version of Visual Studio is not installed on the system.
Notes
Null properties evaluate to False when used in conditions.
The value of the Sequence column for each custom action depends on other sequence values in your Windows Installer package. Sequence values should be such that the devenv.exe custom actions run as close as possible to immediately prior to the InstallFinalize standard action.
InstallExecuteSequence table to schedule the devenv.exe custom actions
Action |
Condition |
Sequence |
|---|---|---|
CA_RunDevenv2002 |
DEVENV_EXE_2002 |
6602 |
CA_RunDevenv2003 |
DEVENV_EXE_2003 |
6603 |
CA_RunDevenv2005 |
DEVENV_EXE_2005 |
6605 |
CA_RunDevenv2008 |
DEVENV_EXE_2008 |