Rebuild Windows Mobile PDA .CAB file - build

Using Smart Device Cab Project, a .CAB installer files can be created. After every modification of the source code, do I have to create .CAB installer files separately for each build or can previously built .CAB installer files be rebuilt?

Related

Writing an Installer that contains .exe files, which it then runs/extracts, using C++

I'm trying to write a custom installer for a project, which acts like a one in all .exe.
The project persists of a mariadb installer, a xampp installer and some other php files.
I want the result to be a single executable file which contains both of the installer files and all of the other files, which it then extracts and does futher stuff to, which isn't important for the issue.
The .exe files are just for temporary use while they are installing their content via a silent install.
I read about the concept of embedded files but didn't find working examples of that for visual studio 2022.
What would be a good approach to archieve that?

How do I automatically include folders and files to the deployment project in visual studio?

I have a c++ project in visual studio and a folder called assets, in the same location as the source file, that contains folders for music, sound effects and images that my c++ game uses. That folder must be placed in the same folder as the .exe file of the game.
I have created a deployment project for the c++ project. However, it seems like I need to manually add these folders (assets, images, music, etc.) and files to the File System on Target Machine.
Is there a way for visual studio to add these folders and files automatically?
I have not managed to find anyting online for how to do that so far.
Thanks.
This link provides many methods. You could drag all the files you want to add into the file system view. Or you could right click on the folder in explorer and click copy and then right click the folder in the file system view in the setup project and click paste.

What cpp file types can I delete/exclude when packaging into an install bundle?

I want to package my executable file and other needed files into an install file (using NSIS) so that other people can install and use. There are a few file types I am uncertain of whether they are needed for installation or if it is safe to delete them.
Here is a random example of the files in the project folder as well as the Debug file automatically generated by VS:
I have already deleted the .user file as I know that is not needed, but not sure when it comes to .vcxproj, .tlog, .build.cppclean, .idp, and .pdb files. Also, do I need to keep the .obj files as well as the .cpp files?
This is my first time trying to do this, I am just messing around to seeing how it all works so thanks in advance.
You generally only need the .exe. Your app might depend on custom .dlls or the C++ run-time library in which case you would bundle the custom .dlls and/or the C++ redistributable.
Your screen shots are of a debug build and you normally want to distribute a release build instead because it is often smaller and contains more optimized code.
.obj files contain the machine code for each source file and is used by the linker when it merges all the required code into your .exe.
.pdb files contain debugging information. You should not distribute them but it is helpful to store them for yourself in case you need to debug a released version of your application.
The rest of the files in Debug and Release can also be ignored.
If your project is open source then you could include the c/c++ files and the Visual Studio project files. Or you could just upload them to Github.
In NSIS you could do something like this
InstallDir $ProgramFiles\MyApp
Page Directory
Page InstFiles
Section
SetOutPath $InstDir
File myproject\Release\MyApp.exe
File mylibrary\Release\*.dll
SectionEnd
It is a good idea to test your installer on a freshly installed Windows instance. Ideally the minimal version you require, Windows 7 etc. This should allow you to verify that you have included all the files required by your application.

Copy folder to build directory Visual Studio C++

How do I go about to make Visual Studio add a folder from my project into the build directory (for example \x64\Release)? I have a folder for images that I want to be included when I build my application so that they can easily be accessed in relation to the executable's location. The problem with doing it manually is that I have to copy it over manually for both my debug and release folders instead of keeping it all compact withing my project. It also helps with uploading to github.
So is there any way to do this? And if so, how?

How do you include LuaPlus into your project?

I downloaded the visual2008 file from here(http://luaplus.org/projects/luaplus/files), but I don't know how to add it to my project. It's not like the other libraries where I just had to add the include directory to my Visual Studio folder and the bin to my system32 or project folder. There are no header files either. I'm using Visual Studio 2010 professional.
I remember downloading LuaPlus for the first time and thinking the same thing--"Where are the headers?" What you'll want to do is just clone the repository located on GitHub and use that to build LuaPlus yourself. The author helpfully included batch files to create different project files (incl. VS2010). You can then use the project files to build LuaPlus and you'll naturally also have the headers & source files as well. I don't recall if it included Lua's source already or if you have to do it yourself manually (this only takes a minute to do, however).