Release Building

[gbakeman]

WinNUT is currently built on developer workstations. This increases the potential for errors or infections, and slows down the process of testing and deploying WinNUT.

• Old manual build method (Pre-#180)
• Post-#180 merge Updated build procedure
  • Use CLI - msbuild -restore -p:"Configuration=[configuration string];Version=[major.minor version].*" .\WinNUT_V2.sln

Now that the first iteration of CI/CD has been completed, additional steps can be taken.

Tasks

• Investigate near-term option for having Setup project built using an Action
  • Add Microsoft Installer Projects to VS 2022 on windows-2022 actions/runner-images#4580
  • Add "Microsoft Visual Studio Installer Projects" Extension actions/runner-images#1382
    • Tip for enabling: Add "Microsoft Visual Studio Installer Projects" Extension actions/runner-images#1382 (comment)
• First pass setting up CI/CD Setting up Continuous Integration, GitHub Actions and Automated Builds #29
• Complete multilingual automation Automate Translation/Localization Building #58
  • Move from Multilingual App Toolkit #226
  • Not blocking release building
• EV Certificate signing #84
  • Not blocking
• Full debug building Setting up Continuous Integration, GitHub Actions and Automated Builds #29
  • Artifact archive name follows format winnut-client-debug-[shortSHA]
  • Verify generated assemblies have correct version following msbuild format
• Complete new updater and prepare client for production transition to ClickOnce - Depends on Modify WinNUT Update Routines (ClickOnce deployments) #97
• Migrate to new setup/install build system
  • New Setup/Installer Build System Research #85
  • Modify WinNUT Update Routines (ClickOnce deployments) #97
  • Tags in the format v.major.minor.build trigger a new build in the Release configuration
  • Confirm languages integrated and installer package compiled
  • Upload archive of the build output, named WinNUT-Client-v[version]-noinstall.
  • Upload ClickOnce installer published artifacts to their destination
  • Automatically generate a Release post with a generic message, to be manually added to at a later time.
• Update documentation
• Continue manually generating and uploading MSI file. Maintain strict release assets order (MSI goes first) until next full release, then relax order.

Comments

• WinNUT won't run after Windows 11 update #206 (comment)
  • Experience with the old installer. Want to make sure it installs quickly, and can handle a running WinNUT instance.

[gbakeman]

Made a breakthrough with the workflow design 61862cf; we now use a sub action specifically for building, that allows us to keep the same environment throughout a workflow without having to duplicate steps for both Debug and Release builds.