Creating Extractable Exe

Here is an approaches to create self-extractable exe:

1. Create a .zip:
• 7zip. Examples are here.
• WinZip (A valid license is needed to use the command line version)
• Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools
2. Create the self-extractable exe:
• Zip 2 Secure Exe

Converting Virtual PC to VMWare

 

• Uninstall virtual machine addition.
• Convert vhd to vmware
• Repair OS win 2003 (using Windows SP1 CD)
• Repair .NET 3.5 SP1 (Error Entry point not found for mscoree.dll)
• Error when building VS.NET (DBPro): culture ID 2155 is not a supported culture.
  • Apply Windows 2003 SP2. Problem solved.

How to set up Virtual Network

 

Domain Controller Machine

1. Set up domain controller
2. Enable DHCP
3. Set VMWare Network Adaptor to Host-Only
4. Set IPv4 Info:
• IP: 10.0.0.2
• Subnet mask: 255.0.0.0
• Default gateway: 10.0.0.1
• DNS: 10.0.0.2

Other Machine

1. Set VMWare Network Adaptor to Host-Only
2. Set IPv4 Info:
• IP:  Anything starting from 10.0.0.3
• Subnet mask: 255.0.0.0
• Default gateway: 10.0.0.1
• DNS: 10.0.0.2
3. Join to the domain (My Computer > Property > Computer name)

Related Articles

How to Create a Domain Account in Active Directory

How to get the IIS logs for AgilePoint Server in IIS 7.0

1. In IIS 7.0, click the Sites node, then get the ID for AgilePoint site.

 

2. Click on the AgilePoint node under Sites, then click on Logging icon.

3. Get the value for Directory:

4. Navigate to the location and select the subfolder with AgilePoint site ID. The IIS log file(s) is under that folder.

 

How to debug InstallerClass

 

In the Setup project of VS.NET, you can write a InstallerClass and attach that to the Custom Action of the Setup project to do some custom steps like checking certain services, copying special files etc.

To debug this InstallerClass, just insert below line of code at the location you wish to set the break point.

System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break();

When running your installer, Windows Installer will understand that’s a user defined breakpoint and let you chose to debug the program. See screen shots below.

After that, you can just press F10 to step through your code.

How to check the physical path of Enterprise Manager for WCF AgilePoint Server

 

1. In AgilePoint Server Manager, check what is the web site associate with Enterprise Manager. In this case, the web site is call AgilePoint. Take note of the value of virtual directory. In this case, it is EM4.

 

2. Go to IIS Manager, right click on ‘AgilePoint’ site > Manage Web Site > Advance Setting, check the value for Physical Path. In this case, it is C:\Program Files\AgilePoint. So, the physical path for Enterprise Manager virtual directory is C:\Program Files\AgilePoint\EM4

How to replace a file in MSI

Use msi2xml. For example, the file you want to replace is Test.dll and your MSI is TestMSI.MSI.

1. This command extracts the MSI files:

• msi2xml -c OutputDir TestMSI.MSI

2. Open OutputDir and modify the file.

• The extracted file names are some random numbers with no file extension, e.g. _132667984196873216. To identify the file you want to replace, open the TestMSI.xml generated by above command, then search for Test.dll and find the matching random number file name.

• You may replace the file using the same random number file name. Modify the file size in TestMSI.xml too.

3. To pack the files back to MSI:

• xml2msi.exe -m TestMSI.xml

You need the -m to ignore the 'MD5 checksum test' that fails when an MSIs file(s) are modified.

From my observation, the file size of MSI reduces after running xml2msi, but all the contents are correct.