I have a situation where I want to deploy windows form application which is already written on various servers (read different environments) that we have.
The solution consists of MSI installer as well. When I add nuget package to solution, it appears that nuget package is not added to MSI installer. That means nuget package will not contain MSI installer when pushed to Octopus (via nuget package) and then to servers.
So how do I handle desktop installations. ?
Thanks
Hi,
Thanks for getting in touch! While it is very possible to both deploy a windows form application and deploy it to desktops, you will still need to use specific conventions to make this work with Octopus.
If you need to run an installer, it still needs to be contained in an artifact of either a NuGet package or a zip. You would not be looking to add a NuGet package to your MSI Installer, but rather add your MSI Installer (and any other files you need for the deployment) to a NuGet package or zip file.
Once you have that single artifact file you will be able to use our Deploy a Package step to transfer your files to the destination machines and install your MSI.
We have a blog post that explain this further: https://octopus.com/blog/install-msi-with-octopus
The blog post is from 3 years ago but it does outlay the steps that are required quite nicely (even if the interface and step names may have changed).
Here is the corresponding Library Step Template that it refers to: https://library.octopusdeploy.com/step-templates/f56647ac-7762-4986-bc98-c3fb74bb844f/actiontemplate-run-windows-installer
We do not officially support Tentacle on desktop machines as we do not test with those Operating systems but we do know that some customers do successfully deploy to them.
Please let me know if you have any issues or further questions.
Vanessa