>Hello All,
>
> I downloaded the new Visual Studio Installer (VSI) 1.0 yesterday, just in time to try it on a new VFP app I had just finished. Thought I would report my findings and see if anyone has any ideas on the one problem I encountered.
>
> Setup of VSI went without a hitch and I spent several hours RTFM (believe it or not!) to get some idea of how it's supposed to work. As you could expect, the first-release documentation is pretty slim but there was enough there to get started.
>
> The user interface is the same as for VB and VID. You can pick the files you need to install, assign them to various folders, and build shortcuts just like InstallShield or Wise. The big difference is that VSI is data-driven, not scripted. It tracks DLL usage by application name, not by count, so when unistall time comes along, it knows whether or not to keep or delete the file in question.
>
> It has the capability of building shared modules (.msm files) that can hold your common files like the VFP runtime stuff. There is also a built-in set of standard NT/W9x modules like OLEAUT32, MSVCRT, etc.. The MDAC.MSM module checks the target machine for the correct version of MDAC before the installation starts. Works too, my first install needed an MDAC update.
>
> The first setup I built took me about four hours, most of that time was reading the help files and recompiling the setup files. Probable time for a simple app (after learning curve) is about 15-30 minutes. The final product is a simple, clean installer. Not flashy, but nice. You can also customize the user interface if you wish.
>
> The problem I ran into was registration of DCOM components. There's plenty of info on COM registration but no real discussion on DCOM. I ended up manually registering my component using the client .exe generated by MTS. Microsoft recommends NOT using self-registration since it bypasses the installer and the info is not stored for uninstall. Anyone have any ideas on the DCOM registration issue? The answer is probably to write registry keys that point to the AppID and the CLSID's of the DCOM component but I'm way out of my knowledge league here!
>
> Overall, I'm impressed. It looks like Microsoft really wants to get out of dll hell. Anyone else tried it yet?

I haven't tried it, but saw it demoed today at DevDays. Very cool when run on Win2K. Thanks for the heads up for use with VFP.