Installing the MVVM Light Toolkit

in Programming / MVVM Light Toolkit

Jump to: Prerequisites / Installing the Toolkit / Installing while Expression Blend is running / Should you have a problem / After the installation / Changing the installation / Checking if a new version is available / Uninstalling the Toolkit / Installing manually / License / Documentation

For more information about the toolkit in general, please refer to the Get Started page on my website.

Prerequisites

For Windows Presentation Foundation, you need to install
- For development: Visual Studio 2008 and the Service Pack 1
- To run the applications: .NET 3.5 SP1 (automatically installed when you install Visual Studio 2008).
- (strongly recommended) Expression Blend 3 to design the application.
For Silverlight, you need to install
- For development: Visual Studio 2008 and the Service Pack 1
- For development: Silverlight tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1
- To run the applications: Silverlight 3 (automatically installed when you install the Silverlight tools for Visual Studio).
- (strongly recommended) Expression Blend 3 to design the application.

Installing the Toolkit

The installer is packed as a MSI installer, which can be downloaded from my website. To install the toolkit, please follow the steps:

Save the installer package to a location on your hard disk, and then open it.
Double click the file MvvmLightToolkit.Setup.msi
It is not required to extract the file from the Zip package, simply open the Zip file and double click the MSI file.
If a message mentions that the publisher could not be verified, confirm by pressing Run.

In the Welcome screen, press Next.

If you wish, select a path for the Toolkit, or leave the default path. Then press Next.

Confirm the installation by pressing Next.

Depending on your Windows settings, you may need to confirm the User Account Control that you really want to install ;)

The installation process starts and all the files get unpacked.

After all the files are unpacked, a custom dialog is shown to configure the Toolkit.

The following settings can be configured:
- Destination for Snippets: This is the folder in which the code snippets for Visual Studio 2008 will be copied. In Visual Studio, use the Code Snippets Manager (Tools / Code Snippets Manager) to check which locations Visual Studio loads snippets from.

Destination for Templates: This is the folder in which Project Templates and Item Templates for Visual Studio 2008 will be copied. In Visual Studio, check the Projects and Solutions options to see where Project Templates and Item Templates are loaded from (Tools / Options / Projects and Solutions).
Note: You must select the folder that contains both the ProjectTemplates folder and the ItemTemplates folder. In the example below, the folder you must select is D:\Visual Studio 2008\Templates.

Installation Type: You can choose to install the Toolkit for Silverlight only, Windows Presentation Foundation only, or for both.
Location of Binaries (Assemblies): This location cannot be configured, but clicking on the link will open the location in Windows Explorer. The folder contains a DLL for Windows Presentation Foundation, and in the Silverlight subfolder, a DLL for Silverlight. This DLL contains classes that facilitate the implementation of a MVVM application.
Note: Even if you choose WPF only or Silverlight only, both assemblies are installed on your PC.
?: Opens your favorite web browser to the Get Started page of the MVVM Light Toolkit.
S: Opens the folder containing the Source code for the MVVM Light Toolkit assembly. The zip file should be extracted to a local folder. Then, you can open GalaSoft.MvvmLight.sln in Visual Studio 2008. This solution contains the projects for Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation, as well as unit test projects for both environments.
V: Starts a Version Check utility that will check the GalaSoft server and inform you if a new version of the MVVM Light Toolkit is available. See below for more details.
GalaSoft logo: Opens your favorite web browser to the GalaSoft home page.

After pressing on the Install button, you should get a confirmation that the Toolkit has been configured properly.

After pressing OK, the installation process is finished.

Installing while Expression Blend is running

Should Expression Blend be running during installation or uninstallation, the installation program will require that you shut it down. Unfortunately, Blend is locking down some files and must be off when installing the MVVM Light Toolkit. Note however that it is not necessary to shut Visual Studio down when installing.

Note: While it is technically true that Visual Studio doesn't need to be shut down, if you experience problems while installing, or if the project templates are not available in the "Add new item" dialog after installation, please close Visual Studio and restart it.

Should you have a problem

If you have any problem during the installation, please contact me at laurent@galasoft.ch.

After the installation

After the installation, the MvvmLight project templates will be available in Visual Studio and in Expression Blend when you choose File / New / Project. The next blog posts will explain how to get started with the MVVM Light Toolkit in Visual Studio and in Expression Blend.

You will also get a new entry in your Start menu: Under All Programs / MVVM Light Toolkit, you will find shortcuts to the Get Started page, to the Source code location, to the Binaries, to the License file as well as a small utility that helps you check if a newer version of the MVVM Light Toolkit is available for download.

Changing the installation

If you need to repair the Toolkit installation, or if you want to change the settings (such as the location of the Snippets, location of the Templates, or change the type of installation (WPF only, Silverlight only or both), you can execute the MSI file again. Then, follow the instructions as mentioned in “Installing the Toolkit”.

Checking if a new version is available

In Start / All Programs / MVVM Light Toolkit, you will find a shortcut titled "Check Version On Server". This starts a small utility application that connects to the GalaSoft web server and checks if the version installed on your PC is up to date.

Press "Check Server" to start the check. If the result is green, you're good to go. If the result is red, click the cat's head to open the Get Started web page and to find the newer version of the Toolkit.

Uninstalling the Toolkit

You can uninstall the Toolkit by running the MSI file again, and then choosing “Remove Mvvm Light Toolkit”, or by using the Programs and Features control panel in Windows. Simply locate the entry reading “Mvvm Light Toolkit” and choose Uninstall.

Installing manually

If you prefer to avoid using the installer, you can download the toolkit elements and install them manually.

License

The MVVM Light Toolkit is distributed under the MIT License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Documentation

I am working on documenting the features of the framework, and building samples. Some is already available on the Get Started page, in the "articles" section (by myself and by other users too). More documentation is in the works, so please be patient, stay tuned to my blog, and in the mean time you can create new MVVM Light applications in Visual Studio or Expression Blend, execute them (in WPF and in Silverlight) and then check the code to see what features are available. Make sure to check the design time experience that the Toolkit offers into Expression Blend too.

Thanks a lot for your interest in the MVVM Light Toolkit, and for your patience waiting for new versions and documentation!

Happy coding!

Laurent