Visual Studio For Mac 2017 Tutorial

The following article uses options that are available starting with the Freeware edition and project type.

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This tutorial will show you how to create installers for your Visual Studio solutions using Visual Studio 2017.

We will start by adding an Advanced Installer Project to an existing solution, editing it and creating a package. Afterwards, we will include and a new Visual Studio project to the solution and build both projects in a single package.

  • 1. Open the Visual Studio solution
  • 2. Add an Advanced Installer Project to the solution
  • 3. Create the first install package
  • 4. Edit the installer project
  • 5. Add another Visual Studio Project to the solution
  • 6. Create the final install package
  • 7. Automatically import .VDPROJ files (optional)
  • 8. Video tutorial
  • 9. See also

1. Open the Visual Studio solution

Open the solution for which you want to create the install package.


2. Add an Advanced Installer Project to the solution

Once the Visual Studio solution is loaded:

  • From the “New Project” dialog select Advanced Installer Project
  • In the “Solution” field select Add to solution option
  • In the “Name” field you can write a name for your project
  • Press to add the project to the solution


By default, when adding an Advanced Installer Project, the build output of the solution will not be automatically added to the installer project, to do this you must:

  • Go to the “Files and Folders' section of the Installer Project
  • Press 'Add Project Output' button
  • Select the “Primary Output” and “References”
  • Press

The output of each project contained by the solution is automatically synchronized in the Advanced Installer project.

Following these steps, Advanced Installer Extension for Visual Studio adds in the installer project all application references except the Microsoft .NET assemblies.


3. Create the first install package

In Visual Studio select 'Build' > 'Build Solution' option to start the build.

After the build is completed successfully, it will create two main files: HelloWorld.exe which is the output from the C# project and Installer Project.msi which is the installation package.


4. Edit the installer project

Visual Studio For Mac 2017 Tutorial

Using the Advanced Installer Project viewer, you can edit basic information about your installer like Product Details, Launch Conditions, Install Parameters, and much more..


Let's suppose we have an Enterprise edition of Advanced Installer. By default, the installer project will be created based on a Freeware license. Since we want to use features from the Enterprise edition, like selecting a theme for the installation dialogs, we will need to upgrade our project type:

  • Press the button to open your installer project in Advanced Installer
  • From the “Project” menu select “Options...”
  • Navigate to the Project Type Tab and select Enterprise
  • Press the button


Visual Studio 2017 Mac Download

Now, that we have an Enterprise project we have full access to all the available Advanced Installer Enterprise features.

  • Go to Themes Page
  • From the right view select the desired theme and variation for your installer dialogs
  • Save the project and exit Advanced Installer

Visual Studio will ask you if you want to reload the installer project since it was modified. Press the button.

5. Add another Visual Studio Project to the solution

If an Advanced Installer Project is added to a solution, it will automatically import the build output and all useful information related to the projects from the solution. If later, the existing projects are modified, or another project is added to the solution the import operation must be redone.

Let's add a new Visual Studio project to the solution:

  • From the “New Project” dialog in Visual Studio select 'Visual C#' > 'WPF App'
  • In the “Solution” field select Add to solution option
  • Press the button. The new project will be added to the solution
  • Rebuild the solution


6. Create the final install package

Include the second project in the installer package:

  • Select the Installer Project.aip file from the 'Solution Explorer'
  • Check that both projects output builds are included in the installer package from the “Files and Folders” page
  • Rebuild the solution
  • Test the new installation package

The newly created installer will contain all the projects from the solution.


7. Automatically import .VDPROJ files (optional)

If you have solutions that contain old Visual Studio Deployment projects (.vdproj) you can automatically convert them to an Advanced Installer project and have it included in your solution, replacing the old VDPROJ. Just open the solution in Visual Studio, with our Advanced Installer VS extension installed, and VS will prompt you to accept the conversion from VDPROJ to AIPROJ (Advanced Installer VS project).

The new project Advanced Installer project will contain all the resources from the old VDPROJ. If you want to customize it more just use the 'Edit in Advanced Installer' button, available when you open the .aip file in Visual Studio.

Visual Studio For Mac 2017 Tutorials

Visual Studio For Mac 2017 Tutorial

8. Video tutorial

As we work to bring you Visual Studio 2019, our team will release the final update to Visual Studio 2017, version 15.9, in the coming months; you can try a preview of version 15.9 here. We’d love your feedback on this release as we finish it up; use Report-a-Problem to submit issues.

Following our standard Visual Studio support policy, Visual Studio 2017 version 15.9 will be designated as the “Service Pack”. Once version 15.9 ships, customers still using version 15.0.x (RTM) will have one year to update to version 15.9 to remain in a supported state. (Customers using versions 15.1 through 15.8 must update to the latest version immediately to remain supported.) After January 14, 2020, all support calls, servicing, and security fixes will require a minimum installed version of 15.9 for the duration of the ten-year support lifecycle.

Microsoft Visual Studio For Mac

You can install the most up-to-date version of Visual Studio 2017 by using the Notifications hub, the Visual Studio Installer, or from visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads.

We also plan to release Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.7 in the coming months, and a final significant update to Visual Studio 2017 for Mac (version 7.8) in the first half of 2019, focused primarily on quality improvements. Visual Studio for Mac continues to follow the Microsoft Modern Lifecycle Policy, and Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8 will be superseded by Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.0 once released. For instructions on updating, see Updating Visual Studio for Mac.

Visual Studio For Mac Os X

More information is available on the Product Lifecycle and Servicing Information for Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server page and the Servicing for Visual Studio for Mac page.