ArcGIS Engine Developer Guide

.NET APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE
ArcGIS components
Components that extend the ArcGIS applications are trickier to deploy than
standalone applications because they must be registered with COM and in specific
component categories. As discussed earlier, implementing COMRegisterFunction
and COMUnregisterFunctions facilitates deployment by providing self category
registration, but this only occurs when the components are registered.
There are two techniques for registering components with COM. One option is to
run the register assembly utility (RegAsm.exe) that ships with the .NET Framework
SDK. This is typically not a viable solution as client machines may or may
not have this utility and it’s difficult to automate. The second and recommended
approach is to add an automatic registration step to a custom setup or install
program.
The key to creating a custom install program that both deploys and registers
components is the System.Runtime.InteropServices.RegistrationServices class. This class
has the members RegisterAssembly and UnregisterAssembly, which register and
unregister managed classes with COM. These are the same functions the RegAsm
utility uses. Using these functions inside a custom installer class along with a
setup program is the complete solution.
The basic steps below outline the creation of a deployable solution. NOTE: The
steps assume you are starting with a solution that already contains a project with
at least one COM-enabled class.
1. In Visual Studio .NET, add a new Installer Class and name it accordingly.
Override the Install and Uninstall functions that are implemented in the
Installer base class and use the RegistrationServices class’s RegisterAssembly and
UnregisterAssembly methods to register the components. Make sure you use the
SetCodeBase flag; this indicates that the code base key for the assembly should
be set in the registry.
[VB.NET]
Public Overrides Sub Install(ByVal stateSaver As
System.Collections.IDictionary)
MyBase.Install(stateSaver)
Dim regsrv As New RegistrationServices
regsrv.RegisterAssembly(MyBase.GetType().Assembly,
AssemblyRegistrationFlags.SetCodeBase)
Chapter 4 • Developer environments • 179