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Installing VSPackages With Windows Installer

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Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

Integrating your VSPackage into Visual Studio requires more than just copying files to a user's computer. Your VSPackage's installer must install the VSPackage and its dependent files, and register and integrate them into Visual Studio. Your VSPackage can take advantage of integration features such as displaying an icon on the Visual Studio splash screen and About dialog box.

Microsoft Windows Installer files are the recommended way to distribute your VSPackages. Easy-to-use Windows Installer packages can run on any Windows operating system supported by Visual Studio. For more information, see Windows Installer.

In This Section

Windows Installer Basics
Provides an overview of the Windows Installer.

VSPackage Setup Scenarios
Discusses different ways you can support side-by-side installations of both your VSPackages and Visual Studio.

Authoring a Windows Installer Package
Provides an overview of the typical steps installers follow to correctly install and integrate VSPackages into Visual Studio.

Detecting System Requirements
Describes how an installer can detect Visual Studio and its components and cancel setup if VSPackage requirements are not met.

Component Management
Discusses how to develop an installer that will maintain the integrity of previous product versions.

Choosing the Installation Directory for a VSPackage
Summarizes the options for locating VSPackages.

VSPackage Registration
Discusses how VSPackages are registered at installation time and why self-registration is a bad idea.

Deploying Project Types
Discusses how to use the new project-type aggregator for managed-code project types.

How to: Generate Registry Information for an Installer
Explains how to use RegPkg.exe to generate a registration manifest for a managed VSPackage.

Commands That Must Be Run After Installation
Explains how to run post-installation commands to integrate VSPackages into Visual Studio.

Uninstalling a VSPackage With Windows Installer
Describes the steps your installer must perform when users uninstall your VSPackage.

Installing VSPackages
Discusses how to build and install VSPackages and how to support users who are running multiple versions of Visual Studio at the same time.