Dear all,
We have serious problem with our updated version of Measurement Studio 2012 and Visual Studio 2013. We were using Visual Studio 2008 and Measurement Studio 2009 for our projects. Now we have updated our projects and we can no longer build installers to deploy our projects.
We have done a search in the disussion forums about this issue, finding that a CAR has been filed on this issue on march 2013: 382945. We have searched for news about this CAR but it seems that there are no news.
The summary is that Measurement Studio is no longer compatible with Installshield, the product that ships with Visual Studio to build installers. And the only recommendation from National Instruments is to use Wix:
"A Corrective Action Request (382945) has been filed on this behavior and R&D is currently looking into a workaround. If possible, I would recommend using WiX. This is not a guranteed fix, but this has been used to successfully deploy Measurement Studio applications without the error you are receiving.
Anjelica W.
National Instruments
Applications Engineer"
But in a later post, there is also an explanation by another engineer:
"The Measurement Studio team has decided not to provide support for InstallShield at this point because of issues like these that we have been unable to resolve.
On the other hand, WiX works very well with Measurement Studio merge modules. We have found that WiX is extremely robust, well documented, free, and easy to maintain. The primary disadvantage to WiX is the learning curve required to begin using it. In order to address this, we have provided a fully functional example for WiX deployment project that requires little modification to create a distribution for any MStudio application (C:\Users\Public\Documents\National Instruments\MStudioVS2012\DotNET\Examples\Application\Deployment\WiX). Refer to the installed Measurement Studio 2013 Help for more information. And download wix from wixtoolset.org."
I don't think that it is honest to sell a product for Visual Studio, and then tell that is not fully compatible neither supported, and that a recommended action, but not guaranteed is to use a tool difficult to learn.
We are using components from other vendors in our application and all of them are compatible with Installshield.
I understand there may be difficulties with the integration, but I think it is not acceptable not to have a solution for this issue. Right now, we have two options:
1) Devote time to learn Wix and use it. At this point, I must say that I expected to have examples about using Wix that I could use from the National Instruments website, as it seems that is the only supported tool, but I have not been able to find any useful information. The above example provided from a National Instruments engineer is not installed in my computer, as I didn't have Visual Studio 2012, only 2013, and as there is no option to Merge Measurement Studio 2013 with Visual Studio 2013 (only with 2012), those examples doesn't seem to be installed.
2) Remove the components we are using from National Instruments and move to another vendor (we are mainly using just the Waveform Graphs and 3D plots, no other controls than that). This is a pity, because the National Instruments graph controls shown to be superior in performance to other vendor controls.
Both options require time and effort, and are difficulties that we didn't know before upgrading. I admit this is part our fault, because we didn't test the installer projects before updating, but I think it is also National Instruments fault that doesn't state at all in the requirements section of Measurement Studio that InstallShield, the tool provided with Visual Studio, is no longer compatible and is not supported by National Instruments.
Please, if you have any comment or news about this issue we have not been able to find in the discussion forums, we will be very happy to know it.
Best regards,
Juan Sancho-Tello