Peernet.Browser.Setup is Microsoft Visual Studio Installer Project. Its purpose is to deliver self-sufficient installation process under single .msi file. Setup process is devided into two stages:
First part of the installation process is to extract all the Peernet.Browser.Setup project files into the installation location. The full list of the files has been described here. Default installation location is under current user's AppData folder.
[LocalAppDataFolder][Manufacturer][ProductName]
This stage is being executed as part of Install basic installation action.
The other stage is execution of netsh process which creates Peernet Browser firewall rule. The process is a Custom Action which executes output of the Peernet.Browser.Setup.AddFirewallRule project. The project internally is a class library that runs netsh with proper arguments. It is executed on Commit basic installation action. It means it executes only when Stage 1 is successfully completed and it doesn't impact overall installation status. Since any firewall modification require Admin Rights the netsh will ask for administrator credentials to be able to start. The user can either provide the credentials or reject the request. If the user provides the valid credentials, the process will start in the background and exit once it is finished. In case Admin credentials request has been rejected, the installer will inform the user that The operation was canceled by the user and the installer will proceed. Note that rejecting the request will result in firewall rule not being added.
You can verify that the firewall rule has been correctly added by running Powershell commands:
$fw=New-object -comObject HNetCfg.FwPolicy2
$fw.rules | findstr /i "Peernet"
Installation location includes:
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| InstallerAssets | It is a directory with assets for the installer itself. It includes Peernet logo for installer header and Peernet logo for the executable shortcut file. |
| Backend.exe | The executable file for the Peernet Command Line Client compiled to lightweight version. |
| Peernet.Browser.WPF.exe | Peernet Browser executable file. |
| Peernet.Browser.WPF.dll.config | Peernet Browser configuration file. It contains settings like ApiUrl, Backend executable path, DownloadPath. |
| All the remaining files are build output of the Peernet Browser solution. It consists of internal and 3rd party DLLs on which Peernet Browser depends. |
Besides the installation location, the installer creates shortcuts to Peernet Browser executable on User's Desktop as well as Programs Menu. After first boot in the installation location you may find also other files created by the Backend.exe under the data folder.
Note: Download .NET 4.8 Developer Pack first from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-framework/net48 (required for the Firewall code).
This is also needed: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=VisualStudioClient.MicrosoftVisualStudio2017InstallerProjects
Recommanded and simplest way of building the Setup project is via Visual Studio 2019. In Visual Studio:
Right-Click 'Peernet.Browser.Setup' project in Solution Explorer -> Select 'Build'
Peernet.Browser.Setup project Debug and Release build configurations are set to install the prerequisites.
The prerequisite for the Peernet Browser is .NET Runtime 5.0.8 (x64). In consequence, output installer will be installing the
runtime if missing on the machine.
The build also defines PostBuildEvents. Once the Peernet.Browser.Setup build succeeded, the following command is being executed:
D:\Tools\WIndowsKits\10\bin\10.0.22000.0\x86\MsiInfo.exe "D:\Sources\Peernet\BrowserSetup\Peernet.Browser.Setup\Release\Peernet.Browser.Setup.msi" -w 10
The event is modifying the MSI file in order to allow non-admin users to successfully complete the installation.
Notes:
- The command line above is machine specific and should be adjusted to whatever machine it is being built on.
- MsiInfo.exe is part of Windows SDK AddOn
- The MsiInfo.exe -w 10 switch sets the MSI "Word Count Summary" property of the MSI file to "compressed - elevated privileges are not required to install this package". More info here
If you already have Visual Studio installed you can use devenv.exe from its files location to build the project with command:
D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\IDE>devenv D:\Sources\Peernet\BrowserSetup\Peernet.Browser.Setup\Peernet.Browser.Setup.vdproj /build "Release|Any CPU"
However there is no guarantee the build will succeed.
If your build fails with error:
ERROR: An error occurred while validating. HRESULT = '8000000A'
It is most likely related to your EnableOutOfProcBuild registry entry. To fix the error you should disable it. Depending on Visual Studio version:
- [VS2013] Set to 0
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0_Config\MSBuild\EnableOutOfProcBuild
- [VS2015] Set to 0
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0_Config\MSBuild\EnableOutOfProcBuild
- [VS2019] Run (from the same directory as the exe!):
D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\VSI\DisableOutOfProcBuild\DisableOutOfProcBuild.exe
The installer logo is included in this repository as file Installer.png and Peernet.ico. Since the logo is not expected to change, it does not require to be replaced.
Version of the installed Peernet Browser application can be modified before the build from the Setup project file level \Peernet.Browser.Setup\Peernet.Browser.Setup.vdproj
Inside the file look up entry similar to
"ProductVersion" = "8:[Version]"
key-value pair and adjust the value accordingly. [Version] is a version number placeholder in format x.x.x, e.g.:
"ProductVersion" = "8:0.4.0"
This is the list of required files in the Peernet.Browser.WPF folder. They must be copied from the directory \Peernet.Browser.WPF\bin\Release\net5.0-windows\win-x64\publish from the Peernet Browser repository. The file Peernet Browser.dll.config is always included in this repository and contains recommended default values. Make sure it does not get overwritten accidentally by the Browser repository version when copying the files.
Application.dll
Infrastructure.dll
Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.Abstractions.dll
Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions.dll
Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.dll
Microsoft.Extensions.Options.dll
Microsoft.Extensions.Primitives.dll
Models.dll
MvvmCross.dll
MvvmCross.Platforms.Wpf.dll
MvvmCross.Plugin.Control.dll
MvvmCross.Plugin.Control.Platforms.Wpf.dll
Newtonsoft.Json.dll
Peernet Browser.deps.json
Peernet Browser.dll
Peernet Browser.dll.config
Peernet Browser.exe
Peernet Browser.runtimeconfig.json
Serilog.dll
Serilog.Extensions.Logging.dll
Serilog.Sinks.Trace.dll
System.Drawing.Common.dll
The backend executable must be copied as file Backend.exe in this root folder. It can be compiled from the Cmd repository.