Windows Vista Beta | WinVistaBeta.com - Message | Can VS2008 generate side-by-side installation merge modules?

September 07, 2008  
Subject: Can VS2008 generate side-by-side installation merge modules?
Group: microsoft.public.vstudio.general
Date: 6/10/2008 10:45:17 AM
From: John Aldridge [Email Address Protection]

I can create a Visual Studio Solution which contains

Lib
a DLL Project
App
an EXE Project which references Lib
LibMSM
a merge module Project which includes the primary output from Lib
AppSetup
a setup Project which includes the primary output from App & LibMSM

and I have a solution which is suitable for development & debugging of
the App/Lib combination, which generates an installer for my App/Lib
application, and which generates a merge module which permits a third
party to develop and deploy applications based on Lib. Visual Studio
automatically embeds suitable manifests as resources in the Lib.DLL and
App.EXE.

But this results in Lib being installed as a private assembly, in the
application folder. I would like to instead install it as a side-by-side
assembly, for serviceability reasons amongst others.

Does Visual Studio 2008 contain any support for generating a suitable
merge module which will install Lib as a side-by-side shared assembly?
I've read through the "Guidelines for Creating Side-by-side Assemblies"
topic in the VS2008 Help, and not found anything helpful, but maybe I've
just not looked in the right place.

Thank you in advance for any pointers anyone can offer, even if it's
just a statement that VS can't do this -- at least I'd know to stop
wasting time looking!

--
Cheers,
John

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