Microsoft® Visual Studio® Installer provides several installation dialogs you can display to your users when they run the installer package (.msi) file to install, repair, or uninstall your application from either an individual local machine or a network server. These dialogs present information about your product's features, services and support, and registration to your users during the installation process. Some dialogs also help users set some product installation options.
When you create a new installer project, Visual Studio Installer sets several of the installation dialogs to display by default at installation run time. If you do not want the default dialogs to display when users install your product, you can delete these default dialogs from the installer project. For more information, see Deleting Installation Dialogs.
You can also customize elements of every installation dialog provided. For more information, see Customizing Installation Dialogs.
See the following sections for detailed information about the dialogs provided with Visual Studio Installer.
Note For information about Microsoft® Windows® installer network installations, search for "network image" in the MSDN™ Library under the topics, Platform SDK, Setup and Systems Management Services, Setup, and Windows Installer Programmer's Reference.
Visual Studio Installer local installation dialogs are provided for display when a user runs an installer package (.msi) file to install, repair, or uninstall your product on a local machine. The same local installation dialogs are available for all local installations, whether they are stand-alone or network client installations.
Local installation dialogs are listed in the Install Dialogs node in the User Interface editor. The following tables list all Visual Studio Installer local installation dialogs. The tables give a brief explanation of each dialog and indicate whether Visual Studio Installer includes the dialog by default in a new installer project.
These dialogs are displayed at the beginning of the local product installation, repair, or uninstallation.
| Dialog name | Displays this information | Included by default? |
| Splash | A splash screen introducing the product or installation program | No |
| Welcome |
|
Yes |
| License Agreement | License agreement text and an option for users to accept or decline | No |
| Customer Information | Fields where the customer can enter their name and organization and their product's serial number | No |
| Select Installation Folder |
|
Yes |
| Confirm Installation | A confirmation that the installer is ready to start installing the product and a prompt for the user to start the installation | Yes |
This dialog is displayed as the installation, repair, or uninstallation proceeds.
| Dialog name | Displays this information | Included by default? |
| Progress |
|
Yes |
These dialogs are displayed at the end of the installation, repair, or uninstallation procedure.
| Dialog name | Displays this information | Included by default? |
| Register User | A button the customer can click to start your registration application | No |
| Read Me | Text of the product's read me file | No |
| Finished | Notification of whether the product installation succeeded or failed | Yes |
Visual Studio Installer provides network installation dialogs for display during a network installation. Users — generally network administrators — can run a network installation of an installer package (.msi) file to create a network image of the .msi file on the network server. Network clients can install local versions of the product when they run this network image.
Network installation dialogs are listed in the Network Install Dialogs node in the User Interface editor. The following tables list all dialogs provided for display during network installations. The tables also give a brief explanation of each dialog and indicate whether Visual Studio Installer sets the dialog to display by default at installation run time.
These dialogs are displayed at the beginning of the network installation procedure.
| Dialog name | Displays this information | Included by default? |
| Welcome |
|
Yes |
| Select Network Location |
|
Yes |
| Confirm Installation | A confirmation that the installer is ready to create a network image of the installer package (.msi) file and a prompt for the user to start this process | Yes |
This dialog is displayed as the network installation proceeds.
| Dialog name | Displays this information | Included by default? |
| Progress |
|
Yes |
This dialog is displayed at the end of the network installation procedure.
| Dialog name | Displays this information | Included by default? |
| Finished | Notification of whether the network installation succeeded or failed | Yes |