Building and Deployment

The Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) is a new build environment. The build process is orchestrated in an XML-based project file. MSBuild replaces traditional .mak files. The project file describes the build process, build configuration, and input and output files.

Visual Studio 2005 supports conventional deployment based on Windows Installer technology. With Windows Installer technology, an application is packaged in a Setup.exe file and then deployed to the local machine or a public share. The Setup.exe program installs the application on the local machine. ClickOnce deployment is introduced in Visual Studio 2005 as an alternate deployment strategy. ClickOnce deploys an application from a central location and combines a desktop application with Web-based delivery system.