Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Installing the MVVM Light Toolkit V1.1.0.0

by Laurent Bugnion via Silverlight on 7/8/2009 8:50:54 AM

With V1.1.0.0 of the MVVM Light Toolkit, an automated Setup application is provided to make it much easier to install, manage, update and uninstall the Toolkit files. For more information about the MVVM Light Toolkit, check the “Get Started” page.

Prerequisites

The MVVM Light Toolkit and its Setup application run on Windows operating system only, and require the .NET framework 3.5 SP1 to use the MVVM Light Toolkit. If you didn’t install it already, you can do so here.

Installing the Setup

• Navigate to the following page:
  http://www.galasoft.ch/mvvm/install/publish.html
  • Note: This is a ClickOnce installation. It will run automatically in Internet Explorer and Firefox. Other browsers, as far as I am aware, are not supported.

• Press the “Install” button.
• In the Application Install dialog, click on Install.

• The application is being downloaded.

• The MVVM Light Toolkit Setup starts.

Installing the Toolkit

The MVVM Light Toolkit Setup can be used to install, manage, update and uninstall the Toolkit.

• To start the Toolkit Setup, you can select the shortcut in Start, All Programs, Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft), MVVM Light Toolkit Setup.

• To install the Toolkit with default settings, click on Install.
  Note: Visual Studio must not be closed while the MVVM Light Toolkit is installed. Should you encounter an issue while installing, however, we recommend shutting down Visual Studio and reinstalling the Toolkit.
• To display the Get Started page online, click on the question mark.
• To modify the settings, click on Go to Settings

Modifying the Settings

The following settings are available:

• Destination for Binaries: This is the folder in which the DLLs will be copied.
  • If you select (for instance) c:\mvvm, the DLL for WPF will be installed into c:\mvvm\ and the DLL for Silverlight will be installed into c:\mvvm\silverlight\
• Destination for Snippets: This is the folder in which the code snippets will be copied. This folder should match the folder set into Visual Studio 2008.
  • To check which folder is set in Visual Studio 2008, choose Tools, Code Snippet Manager.

• The snippets for WPF and for Silverlight are installed in the same folder.
• Destination for Templates: This is the folder in which the ItemsTemplates subfolder and the ProjectTemplates subfolder will be found. These two subfolders should match the ones set into Visual Studio 2008.
  • To check which folders are set in Visual Studio 2008, choose Tools, Options, Project and Solutions.

• Installation Type: You can choose to install all the files for WPF, Silverlight, or both.

Modifying the Settings after installation

Unfortunately, files are getting pretty locked by Visual Studio after they have been installed. To prevent errors, you can only modify the settings by uninstalling the Toolkit first, modifying the desired setting and then reinstalling. The installation process is very fast, and all the settings are saved, so the process is very painless.

Updating to a new version

To check if a new version is available, you simply have to start the Toolkit Setup. It will connect to the server, and notify you if a new version is available. Simply follow the indications to upgrade the Toolkit to the new version.

After the Toolkit Setup has been upgraded to the new version, follow the steps described under Installing the Toolkit (earlier in this page).

Uninstalling the Toolkit

To uninstall the MVVM Light Toolkit, follow the steps:

• Start the Toolkit Setup application (under Start, All Programs, Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft), MVVM Light Toolkit Setup).
• Press on the Uninstall button.

This step removes all the files that have been installed on your computer. Empty folders will get deleted too.

Uninstalling the Setup

If you wish to remove the MVVM Light Toolkit Setup application from your computer, follow the steps:

• Select Start, Control Panel.
• Select the Programs and Features control panel (or the equivalent on your operating system).
• Find the entry names Mvvm Light Toolkit Setup.
• Press Uninstall.

This will remove the Setup application from your computer. This step does not remove the Toolkit however. If you want to remove the Toolkit, follow the steps described in Uninstalling the Toolkit (earlier in this page). You must uninstall the Toolkit before you uninstall the Setup application.