How do I include a dll in a build specification and/or installer?

[garya505]

I must be missing something here. 

I am building an SDK for VI developers to use for our hardware.  At a minimum, this SDK will include a set of VIs (with source) and a wrapper DLL that I build in advance with VC++.  I may also have some EXE files built by LabVIEW.

In my Build Spec, I don't really care where the build files go on my machine, as long as I know where they are. 

For the Installer, on my customer's machines I want my VI source files to go in a directory I specify, lets say something like "C:\EFCLV_SDK\ExampleVI".  I want my wrapper DLL file to go in "C:\WINDOWS\System32".   If I have EXE files, they would go in some directory in "C:\Program Files" like maybe "C:\Program Files\EFCLV_SDK".

Maybe the LabVIEW Installer is not a good choice for this task, but it seems like it should be simple.

[Tanya_V]

Hi garya505,

I'm sorry I misunderstood what you were trying to do. You were on the right track earlier in the thread when creating an installer with your EXE. What you want to do is go to the Sources Files category of your installer, manually add a folder under the [WindowsFolder] and name it System32. Add your dll from your project to this new folder you created as shown below.

I tried this and it did install the dll in the System32 folder after running the installer.

Let me know if this works for you.

Take care!

[garya505]

OK thanks, that worked good for the wrapper DLL. 

Now for the VI source files.  We are distributing the source with our SDK, though some of the files will have a password to disable editing.  On my customer's machines I want the VI source files to go in a folder I specify, lets say something like "C:\EFCLV_SDK\ExampleVI".  

We may also have EXE files, and they would go in some directory in "C:\Program Files", for example "C:\Program Files\EFCLV_SDK".  I assume that I would just create a folder under [programFilesFolder] which for this example would be named EFCLV_SDK. Yes?

[garya505]

When I run the Installer it wants to put everything in the "My Documents" folder!  It seems to totally disregard the destination folders I create in the Installer.

[garya505]

Ok, I was wrong.  The Installer says it's installing to "My Documents" but it does install my files to the directories I specify. 

Not sure why that is, but oh well it seems to work ....

Now I need to try this on a "clean" machine so I know if it really works or not.