OPC Studio User's Guide and Reference
Automated deployment with Production installer
Client and Subscriber Development > Application Deployment > Deployment Methods > Automated deployment with Production installer
In This Topic

The QuickOPC contains a separate installation package (for Windows) that is for production purposes only. This installer executable has a "-Production" postfix. It is much smaller than the Full installer: At the time of writing this article, the full installer has 296 MB, while the production installer has only 15 MB. The production installer contains only the COM components and the LMConsole utility (for licensing), and a code to optionally register the COM components, and/or produce the type libraries (TLB) for them. The production installer does not install any Start menu icons. It is intended for embedding in other installation programs. It can be automated from the command line, and can also be run silently.

The Production Installer is not meant for normal .NET or Python applications (.NET Framework, .NET 6, 7 or 8); it is meant to be used for COM applications or Excel Connector deployment.

This is because in the NuGet package reference model (as opposed to assembly referencing model), the set of assemblies required is not static - including assembly versions, and the binding redirects needed to support them. The only usable part from the Production installer for .NET applications is the LMConsole utility, and that can be invoked separately, which means that the use of Production Installer would be an overkill.

An exception to this is when you use QuickOPC .NET assemblies from PowerShell or C++/CLI.

The developer will find the link to download the production installer in the Redist directory.

The production installer can also be directly downloaded using this link.

The production installer is created using Inno Setup. This means that if you want to automate it from your own installer using command line, you can use all Setup Command Line Parameters it provides, and check Setup Exit Codes as needed. You will typically use the /SILENT or /VERYSILENT parameter, possibly combined with /TYPE/COMPONENTS, /TASKS or /MERGETASKS parameters.

Setup Types

The available setup types (for the /TYPE=type name parameter) are:

Setup Type Name Description
productionnet Production installation (.NET only)
productioncom Production installation (COM only)
productionexcel Production installation (Excel only)
custom Custom installation

Setup Components

If you need more control over the installed parts, you can specify the components to be installed individually. The available components (for the /COMPONENTS="comma separated list of component names" parameter) are:

Component Name Description
netassemblies .NET Assemblies (for PowerShell)
comcomponents COM Components
typelibs Type Libraries (COM)
tools\productiontools Production Tools (License Manager, ...)
excelconnector Excel Connector
The License Manager component in the Production installer contains both the console-based license manager (LMConsole.exe), and the GUI-based LicenseManager.exe.

Setup Tasks

You can also instruct the Setup to perform additional tasks during installation, using /TASKS in the command line. The available tasks are:

Task Name Description
(currently none)

License Install

The production installer can be passed an additional command line parameter with a path to the license key file (typically with .BIN or .TXT extension), causing it to automatically install the license as part of the setup process.

For QuickOPC, the command line parameter is "/LicenseFile=...".

For Excel Connector, the command line parameter is "/LicenseFile2=...".

Unless you specify a path in the file name, the file is assumed to be in the same directory as the installer's executable. It is recommended to use a full path in the file name to avoid ambiguity and assure correct installation of the license.

Uninstallation

It is also possible to automate the uninstallation. For that, the production installer places a unins000.exe file in the Setup directory of the product folder, where your own uninstaller can find it and call it as well. More information to this you will find in Uninstaller Command Line Parameters and Uninstaller Exit Codes.

The Production installer does not configure the software. For example, if you need the Connectivity RTD Server to use a specific connectivity configuration, you need to install the ConnectivityConfiguration2.xml file yourself.
See Also