Building Installers and Creating Repositories

Follow these steps to create an installer or repository, which will contain the package you create and all dependent packages.

1. Access the Installers and Repositories pane.
2. Select New Installer or Repository, then select either:
   1. New Package Installer to create a package installer which allows a user to install packages without NI Package Manager installed by double-clicking on the Install.exe file. This installer only has a single version of a given package.
      
   2. New Local Repository to create a repository which can be consumed by NI Package Manager. A local repository requires the user installing the files in the repository to already have NI Package Manager installed. Package Builder currently can only create a new repository and not add to an existing repository.
      
3. Select Add Packages to add packages to the repository or installer.
   1. For packages local to the solution, select the checkboxes for the packages to include.
   2. For external packages, select Show Additional Sources. Package Builder can add external packages that have been installed to your PC, as shown in Installed Packages, or downloaded to your PC as a package installer, shown in Installer Products.
4. If this is a new solution, then select File»Save to save the solution. This is necessary because build outputs are placed in subdirectories relative to the solution, by default.
5. Build the installer or repository. Use the Errors and Warnings pane to address errors as needed.
   1. If the installer or repository requires solution packages to be built for the first time or built again, select Build Solution in the application-wide toolbar.
   2. If the installer or repository requires solution packages that have already been successfully built with your most recent version of the files, then select Build Installers and Repositories in the application-wide toolbar to skip rebuilding the packages.