Cabbing and Signing Components
-
When I took over as Tech Lead on this huge web project we've been working on, I also took on the glorious task of keeping our cabs up to date. This web project is very fat so there's quite a few components involved that must be downloaded to the client. 99% of these are ATL COM in-process DLL's. Currently the process for creating, updating, and signing these cabs is possibly the biggest pain in the arse I've ever had to deal with. To create the CAB (initially) we use the Package and Deployment wizard (which is really for VB) that comes with Studio to create the shell for the cab creation. Among other things it generates the INF file and the necessary files to create the CAB. However, since it was really created for VB components you only use it initially to set things up. Then you have to use an editor to go into the INF file and update versions and any special instructions, classid's, etc. Then we run the BATCH file created by the Deployment wizard and you get a CAB. Once we have the CAB we then have to sign it. Our customer buys the keys from Verisign so we use some "Digital Signature Wizard" from Microsoft. Then you have to locate the CAB you want, point the signer to your certificate, then to your Private Key, then type in passwords a couple times, blah, blah, blah. It's a nightmare. Does anyone know a cleaner and easier way to do this? Thanks,