InstallShield 2012 Express Edition User Guide - Knowledge Base ...

Chapter 2: Getting Started
Converting or Importing Visual Studio Projects into InstallShield Projects
Task To import a Visual Studio project (.vdproj) into an Express project (.ise):
1. Create or open the Express project.
2. On the Project menu, click the Visual Studio Deployment Project Wizard button.
3. Complete the panels of the Visual Studio Deployment Project Wizard.
InstallShield imports the Visual Studio project into your open Express project based on the settings that
you configured in the wizard. As InstallShield imports the project, it displays the status of the project
import in the Output window. The Output window shows each step of the conversion process, and it lists
any conversion errors and warnings. InstallShield imports all of the files, registry entries, and other
application data from your Visual Studio project into the Always Install feature of your InstallShield
project.
Conversion Process
If you use InstallShield to convert a Visual Studio setup project, InstallShield creates an InstallShield
Express project (.ise).
Task To convert a Visual Studio project (.vdproj) to an InstallShield project (.ise):
1. Open InstallShield.
2. On the File menu, click Open. The Open dialog box opens.
3. In the Files of type box, select Visual Studio Setup Projects (*.vdproj).
4. Browse to the location of the Visual Studio project that you want to open, and select the project file.
5. Click the Open button.
InstallShield creates an InstallShield project based on the settings in the Visual Studio project.
InstallShield stores the .ise file in the same folder as the .vdproj file. As InstallShield creates the .ise file,
it displays the status of the project conversion in the Output window. The Output window shows each
step of the conversion process, and it lists any conversion errors and warnings.
Once the conversion process finishes successfully, the new InstallShield project is displayed in
InstallShield.
Post-Import and Post-Conversion Tasks
Prerequisite Tasks
Visual Studio lets you add one or more predefined prerequisites to one or more configurations in a
Visual Studio setup project. The import process in InstallShield attempts to convert all of the
prerequisites in all of the configurations to equivalent InstallShield prerequisites. If InstallShield does
not include a corresponding InstallShield prerequisite, warning -9071 occurs, alerting you that the
prerequisite could not be converted.
106 ISE-1800-UG01 InstallShield 2012 Express Edition User Guide