InstallShield 2012 Spring Express Edition User Guide

Chapter 16: Building, Testing, and Distributing Installations
Configuring and Building Releases
InstallShield supports the Microsoft Build engine (MSBuild) included with the .NET Framework.
MSBuild support enables you to build Visual Studio solutions with InstallShield projects in build lab
environments where Visual Studio is not installed.
Overview
MSBuild is an extensible build framework designed to remove the build dependence on Visual Studio.
The .NET Framework provides the capability to build projects or solutions from the command line or
any other host of MSBuild. For more information on MSBuild, see the MSDN Library.
MSBuild Tasks
The flexibility and extensibility of MSBuild is controlled through atomic groupings of internal build
steps referred to as tasks. One example of a task that ships with MSBuild is Csc, which can compile code
from a Visual C# project. InstallShield installs an MSBuild task called InstallShield, which builds an
InstallShield project, and a targets file that provides default build steps for the project. This customized
task, along with the targets file, enables MSBuild to perform all required actions to build the
InstallShield project as part of a Visual Studio solution.
This table describes the parameters of the InstallShield task.
Table 16-5: MSBuild InstallShield Task
Parameter Type Description
InstallShieldPath String This parameter specifies the path to folder containing the
InstallShield application.
Project String This parameter specifies the location of the project file (.ise).
ProductConfiguration String This parameter specifies the product configuration for the release.
The value for this parameter should be Express.
ReleaseConfiguration String This parameter specifies the release name. Valid options are as
follows:
• Custom
• CD_ROM
• DVD-10
• DVD-18
• DVD-5
• DVD-9
• SingleImage
• WebDeployment
300 ISE-1900-UG00 InstallShield 2012 Spring Express Edition User Guide