Instead, I attempted to modify the bootstrapper package for vcredist, specifically the product.xml file. I didn't want to copy the DLLs - Microsoft recommends against doing that, and for a good reason. Now, I'm suspecting that my fix will be to customize the bootstrapper product.xml, package.xml for C++ redist to check for already installed version. This is a product design flaw, either in ClickOnce or C++ redist installer. I'm pretty sure I'm using ClickOnce as it was intended to be used. To ignore the failure code from the C++ redist installer and continue to install the app. I didn't write a single line of code for the ClickOnce installer, just used the VS UI to specify prerequisites.Įxpected behavior would be for either the C++ redist installer to accept that a newer version is installed and exit gracefully (instead of with an error code which makes the ClickOnce installer terminate), or (if possible) for the ClickOnce installer The major point of my posts is to aid in the learning process.īut the point here is it's not my installer, it's Microsoft's ClickOnce installer as generated by the Publish function in VS. I may also give inefficient code or introduce some problems to discourage copy/paste coding. They are meant to just illustrate a point. Any samples given are not meant to have error checking or show best practices. This may actually be classed as a failure in your installer to not verify if a compatible runtime was already installed. It would complain about the failure to install the redistributable. Visual Studio would even do it to itself if you installed the most up to date version of the redistributable and then install Visual Studio. I have had plenty of things fail to install because theyĭidn't check if the redistributable was installed. You see, if you try to install a version of the VC redist which is the same major version but an older update, then more often than not the redistributable installer would just exit with a hard error. Actually, an installer could still break a completely different installer anyway.

Visual studio 2015 runtime