[great-users] Installation Problems

[Krishnakumar B]

Hi Folks,

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 09:29:32 AM -0500, Anantha Narayanan wrote:
> I tried to install on a test machine, with Win XP Pro and VS2005, and
> encountered the same error.
> I installed VS2005 SP1, and after that GReAT installed correctly.
> I tried one of the samples, and the GR engine and code generator work
> fine, and the generated code compiles and runs fine.

The error is probably due to the manifest embedded into the dlls built
using VS2005 SP1.  At runtime, when your dll is loaded the OS checks for
manifest compatibility.  The manifests don't match on a machine that
doesn't have VS2005 SP1 installed.  This is because the version of the
Side-by-Side assemblies like MSVC80.dll, MSVCP80.dll etc. that ships with
VS2005 SP1 are different from the ones that ship with VS2005.

> btw, installing VS2005 SP1 requires a lot of time, disk space, and all
> the planets to be in the right positions.
> If you are not keen to install SP1, see if you can figure something out
> from here:
> http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2006/05/06/591694.aspx

This only applies if you are using Windows Installer.  Since GReAT and UDM
switched to InnoSetup, this doesn't apply anymore.  To confirm you can test
it out, by just copying the dlls onto the target machine and trying to
register the interpreters.

I see a number of ways to get around this:

1. Compile the releases always on a machine which has only VS2005.
2. Use the policy assemblies available at %ProgramFiles%\Common
   Files\Merge Modules as part of your installer.
3. Ship private assemblies of the VS2005 SP1 redist files.  You can just
   copy the folder(s) under %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio
   8\VC\redist\x86 and put them inside %UDM_PATH%\bin or %GReAT_PATH%\bin.
4. Package %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio
   8\SDK\v2.0\BootStrapper\Packages\vcredist_x86.exe with your installer
   and install it as a pre-requisite to your installation.
   
The last three solutions don't require you to restrict yourself to VS2005.
Hope this helps.

-kitty.

-- 
Krishnakumar B <kitty at dre dot vanderbilt dot edu>
Institute for Software Integrated Systems, Dept. of EECS, Vanderbilt University