How to include MFC and Visual Studio CRT libraries into MSI installer?

Question

I'm trying to learn how to write MSI installer. I'm using WiX, and I'm curious. My application comes with the dependencies to the followign MFC and CRT libraries:

mfc90u.dll
msvcr90.dll

How do you install those?

Answer 1

There are some choices listed here. I recommend using the appropriate redistributables instead of installing individual DLLs.

With WiX 3.6 and later, you can create a chainer that runs multiple installers. You can create a VS project for that with a WiX Bootstrapper template.

Answer 2

Distibuting the vcredist dlls as private DLLs creates security risks for the user, and is discouraged, however if you distribute the version mentioned it must live in a subfolder of the app folder with a name specified in msdn docs. It is far better to use the vcredist exe (even if your app does not need all of the vc redist files),or the related msm. The location of the msm or private dlls is part of your VS installation and detailed in the VS redistribution license. The vcredist exe is available from microsoft's site. There are many different versions of the vs 2008 redist. Open your binary in a text editor and search for manifest to read the embedded manifest which details which version of the vcredist you need to deploy. Never take anything from the SXS folder. Regarding wix you can add the msm to your msi but there are issues with doing that. The prefered method is create a Wix bundle using the vcredist exe.