Creating a Setup Project

Visual Studio .NET comes bundled with five types of project templates that can be set up and used to deploy .NET applications. These project templates can be accessed in the same way that any other project in Visual Studio .NET is accessed, by using the File | New Project dialog box.

Figure 1 Set up and Deployment of applications in Visual Studio.NET

A standard Windows installer setup for a visual studio.NET application can be invoked with Setup Project template. The Web project template helps in setting up aWeb template while merge module template helps in packaging up an application based on Windows Installer technology. The set up wizard template guides the user through the process of creating any one of the other setup and deployment project templates. The Cab project template is used to create a cabinet file which may contain a number of files but no installation logic. It helps in packaging a number of files into a single file for ease of download.

Configuring Deployment Properties

Once an application is created, its deployment related properties can be configured. To configure, the user has to right click the FormattingApplicationSetup project from the Solution Explorer and select properties and then selecting Build. The configuration manager dialog box, then, helps the user change the Active solution configuration setting from Debug to Release for both projects to create a release build.

By setting the configuration settings to Release, a release build can be created that can be installed onto the end user's computer. By default the debugging information is included as part of the debug project. This has to be changed to Release to optimize the project output.

Figure 2: Configuration Manager Dialog Box after Modification

The project files can now be packaged into loose compressed files, setup files or cabinet files. If all the files have to be compressed into a single MSI file the option In Setup file has to be selected. The bootstraper property has to be configured by setting it to BootStrapper. This is a program that will be executed before the application is run. The Bootstrapper program does not get bundled with the MSI and provision needs to be made for download over the Web or any other means. The Widows installer version 1.5 will have to be present on the target computer for Visual Studio.Net installer created application. This installer was bundled into the Windows XP operating system, but with earlier systems it had to be specifically installed and bundled with the installer. This increases the size of the installation program. The Compression property also has to be set to optimize the speed of installation.

Configuring Project Properties

Certain deployment specific properties have to be set at a global level. These properties can be accessed through the properties window. The Add/Remove Programs icon settings, the Author settings, installation description settings, the keyword settings, the Detect newer installed version settings, remove previous versions settings, Manufacturer settings and so on will have to be specified.

(Sample screenshot from older version)
Figure 3. FormattingApplicationSetup Properties Window After Configuration

First Page: Deploying Windows Applications In Visual Studio.NET 2005