Install Custom Control in VS Toolbox
Our company provides 3rd party components installed the Inno Setup. We use VS Package to put our component into Visual Studio Toolbox automatically. But it sometimes fail. The VS Package also need something called "Package Load Key" - even though we test it, the Visual Studio refuses to integrate our component on some machines.
Are there any alternatives that work with at least both VS 2008 and VS 2010 ? I spent whole day researching for these, but no solution seems complete:
use EnvDTE
There is an implementation in Visual Studio Toolbox Manager, but this works with VS 2005 and 2008 only. I need it to ensure working with at least 2008 and 2010. The user can have every possible combination of 2005/2008/2010 versions installed...
use VSI
It is easy to create VSI package, but when installing it, a wizard appears, which is annoying to users (adds some 4 more steps to setup process - every extra step cuts few percent of potential customers from us...). It would be something like an installer within installer...
use TCI
Toolbox Control Installer looks promising, but the documentation is old and it does not look that it works with VS newer than 2005.
manual installation
The user have to right-click on the Toolbox, select "Choose Items..." and then browse for the component's DLL file. This works every time in eve开发者_StackOverflowry version of VS but, as with VSI approach, many petulant developers will un-install the component and never use it (= purchase it) because it does not appear in ther Toolbox automatically and they are too lazy to figure out how to add it.
I wrote a tutorial article discussing and comparing all the approaches:
Visual Studio Toolbox Control Integration
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