Ezequiel Jadib’s Blog

NOTE: A new version of Smart Client Software Factory was published. This new version is for Visual Studio 2008. Please check this post for more information.

One of the prerequisites to install SCSF is having Visual Studio 2005. This prerequisite doesn’t allow us to install SCSF in a box with only Visual Studio Orcas Beta 2 installed.

Figure 1. The error raised by the SCSF installer if you don’t have Visual Studio 2005 installed.

In this post, I will detail the steps you have to follow in order to use SCSF with Orcas Beta 2.

1. Install Guidance Automation Extensions Technology Preview (July 2007 Release for Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio Beta 2).
2. Download and install Orca MSI editor (which is distributed with the Windows SDK). The Orca MSI Editor is a table-editing tool that can be used to edit your .msi files. If you want to learn more about this tool, please visit this link.

   Note: If you don’t want to download the Windows SDK, a guy published the Orca.msi tool (Download from this place at your own risk) .

3. Open Orca MSI editor and then go to File > Open…. Select the SCSF MSI file (Smart Client Software Factory – May 2007.msi).
   
   Figure 2. The Orca MSI editor with the Smart Client Software Factory msi opened.

4. Select the RegLocator table from the tables list.
   
   Figure 3. The RegLocator table of the SCSF msi.
5. Modify the following key values (replace the 8.0 with 9.0 in the paths) from this table:
   • FindVSInstallDir
   • VisualStudioInstallRegistry
   • VistualStudioHelpRegistrySearch

   This is how it should look after replacing these values
   
   Figure 4. The RegLocator table values modified.

6. Save the changes.
   
   Figure 5. The Orca MSI Editor save dialog.
7. Install Smart Client Software Factory May 2007.

  
Figure 6. The SCSF is properly installed.

Figure 7. The SCSF solution created with Visual Studio Orcas Beta 2.

Figure 8. The SCSF solution created with Visual Studio Orcas Beta 2 running.

Known Issues

Note: Sebastian Iacomuzzi wrote about the possible workarounds you can apply to fix this known issues. Check out the following posts:

• Smart Client Software Factory & Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 - Workarounds for C# Known Issues
• Smart Client Software Factory & Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 - Workarounds for Visual Basic Known Issues

In C#:

• Compiling errors after run the Add WPF-View (with presenter) recipe (missing references).
  • Change the project’s target framework to 3.0 to compile successfully.

In VB:

• Compile errors after run the Create Solution recipe (Form1 is not a member of "Shell").
  • Change Form1 to ShellForm to compile successfully.
• Application crashes after run the Add WPF-View (with presenter) recipe. 
  • Still researching on this.

We are working on this issues in order to provide the steps to fix them. I will post about it so stay tuned.

Hope you find this guidance useful. Feel free to visit us at Codeplex Forum to give us feedback.

Important: Keep in mind that this is just a workaround so use these steps at your own risk. This guidance is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind.