Setup targeting both x86 and x64?

Question

I have a program that requires both x64 and x86 dlls (it figures out which ones it needs at run time), but when trying to create a setup, it complains:

File AlphaVSS.WinXP.x64.dll' targeting 'AMD64' is not compatible with th project's target platform 'x86'
File AlphaVSS.Win2003.x64.dll' targeting 'AMD64' is not compatible with th project's target platform 'x86'
File AlphaVSS.Win2008.x64.dll' targeting 'AMD64' is not compatible with th project's target platform 'x86'

How can I make my setup target both platforms like my program does?

Answer 1

The MSI created by the setup project (in Visual Studio) can only target one platform at a time. Your option is to either make 2 MSI's, merge them together and make a custom setup boot strapper that choose between the two. There are some 3rd party products,like Advanced Installer for example, that can do this for you.

Answer 2

I ran into this too and wrote a blog post about my solution:

• deflate the file using deflate.exe, naming it with a different extension (e.g. .x64)
• add it to your main project as a content file
• add a custom action project to your solution
• add the custom action to the setup projects "Install" custom actions
• inflate the file inside the custom actions Install method using
• System.IO.Compression.DeflateStream (see code above)
• do a little dance around your desk, down the hall, and past as many coworkers as you care to annoy :)

The deflate.exe file can be downloaded from its repository on google code.

Answer 3

.Net has an "Any CPU" option. It's tempting to think of it as more of a "generic" option that's going to only use the lesser x86 features, but really it lets the JIT compiler on each machine pick the appropriate cpu type for that machine.

The only time you shouldn't use it is if you know you have dependencies or requirements that aren't good for one architecture or the other. For example: you know you need a lot of ram, you have a dependancy on a 32-bit native dll, or you want to pre-compile the app.

There's a danger here because you have a platform-specific dll dependancy. But you have dlls for both types and it sounds like you know how to pick the right one at runtime. So will the 'Any CPU' option work for you?