How to customize Visual Studio 2017 Installer Projects dialogs Part 1
Summary
The Visual Studio 2017 Install Project is a very simple, basic and useful extension to create installers for Visual Studio applications. Although the extension is free and easy to use you may have a need to customize the User interface dialogs to meet your requirements.
To customize the dialogs, you will need to install the Windows 10 SDK so that we can use an application that will enable you to edit the dialogs. The application is called Orca and is available free in the Windows Kit.
This article is Part 1 that will initially get you setup. In Part 2 I will provide instructions on making changes using Orca and we will also create a Visual Studio Install ProJet from beginning to end and change a dialog in the middle to demonstrate how this works.
Documentation reference:
Microsoft Document
Example case from code project
https://www.codeproject.com/articles/1028052/create-custom-dialogs-for-an-setup-project-in-visu
Location of the built-in default Dialogs
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\VSI\bin\VsdDialogs\1036
Pre-requisites
To start to customize dialogs using Visual Studio Installer projects you will need to install or setup the following.
Note: The folder paths may be different on your machine, adjust the information given to reflect your environment.
1-Install Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Installer Projects extension from the Marketplace.
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=visualstudioclient.MicrosoftVisualStudio2017InstallerProjects
2- Install Windows 10 SDK
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/windows-10-sdk
The install will create a Windows Kit
located at:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits
3- Install Orca application.
– The Orca msi installer
(Orca-x86_en-us.msi)will be in the Windows Kit at the following location C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\bin\10.0.18362.0\x86
You must run the msi from within the x86 folder because it contains other references in the folder.
Running Ora and opening a dialog
- Run the Orca application -the shortcut gets created in startup
- Select File then open
- Paste the dialog location into the filename box
and press enter
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\VSI\bin\VsdDialogs\1036 - The Orca application by default does not have a filter for .wid files, you need to set the File Type to all *.*.
- Select the dialog you wish to edit.
See a short video these steps.
Editing the dialog
The dialogs are in a table format and there will be a learning curve on how to customize and make changes. I will be providing some basic steps to modifying custom dialogs in Part 2, but for now you have the information that will help you get started.
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