bVisual

AdvancedInstaller

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Installing Visio Templates and Stencils

I was recently on holiday but needed to update an installation of Visio Templates and Stencils for all languages. I use Advanced Installer in Enterprise mode so that I can edit the PublishComponent table like I have described in my earlier article ( see Using Advanced Installer with Visio VSTO Add-Ins – bVisual )Unfortunately I only had my travel laptop and could not refer to previous projects. Instead I referred to an excellent article on UnmanagedVisio, and tried the suggested Component IDs for All Versions of Templates and Stencils

However, these do not work for me using Visio Plan 2. Nothing showed up in the Visio UI. So, this article describes how it works for me using Advanced Installer.

  • Advanced Installer Organization
  • Advanced Installer Component table
  • Advanced Installer PublishComponent table
  • Visio Published Template Category
  • Published Visio Template
  • Published Visio Stencils
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Refreshing the cached installed files of Visio

I have created many Visio solutions over the past 25 years and used a number of methods of creating an installation that includes Visio templates and stencils. I have just wasted many hours trying to debug an installation created with Advanced Installer until I realised that the problem was that Visio was not properly updating the cache of installed templates and stencils. In the end, the answer was to delete the cache and let Visio re-create it. The screenshots below show the custom shapes opened with the custom template and the More Shapes context menu. Before I deleted the cache, Visio incorrectly displayed the file name of some of the stencils (those with a trailing “_M” ) rather than the display name as entered into the PublishComponent table in Advanced Installer. In addition, the context menu did not show those stencils as being present in the workspace.

  • Before deleting the cache
  • After deleting the cache
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Advanced Installer now Supports Visio VSTO Add-Ins

Advanced Installer now supports creating VSTO Visio Add-Ins installation projects using the Office Add-Ins wizard! This is great news for those of us who are still having to create VSTO Add-Ins, especially since Visual Studio does not include Setup & Deployment projects (again).

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Using Advanced Installer with Visio VSTO Add-Ins

I have written many add-ins for Visio over the years, some for private clients for use in-house, some as products for public release by my clients or by me, and some just to help me with my day-to-day Visio development tasks. The ease of installation is always an issue, and I have been using a digital certificate to guarantee its authenticity in almost all of these scenarios. I have also included licensing code from a third-party for some of my own products, but have been aware that the third-party product I have been using is not ideal because it needs its own registered component on the client machine. So, when a client asked that I use Advanced Installer to create the installation setups so that their licensing system could be used, then I was (and still am) all for it because it could become a better method for myself. However, there are some issues that I am overcoming through this transition ….not least that an apparently correctly assigned digital certificate was actually not valid.

InvalidDigitalCertificate
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