3.12 Visual Studio.NET Solution Deployment

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A huge issue for developers writing applications prior to Visual Studio.NET has been deployment. Building a server and deploying a solution can be a very daunting prospect, particularly if you need to have subsequent rebuilds, since it is extremely difficult to achieve a clean machine devoid of any old components. This component conflict has been neatly named 'DLL hell' since the DLL versions end up causing no end of conflicts and software errors.

Visual Studio.NET has three automated types of deployment:

1. Merge Module Project, packages components that might be shared by multiple applications . Components (.msm files) are created that allow setup code to be shared between Windows Installers. A merge module is created that contains all of the resources, registry entries, dependencies, and setup logic needed for that installation.

2. Setup Project builds an installer for a Windows-based application . The Windows installer file (.msi) has all of the components, files, registry settings, and instructions for the installation. Two types of setup projects can be created: one for traditional Windows applications that installs the files in a specified server directory and a Web setup project that deploys the solution to a virtual directory on a Web server.

3. Cab Project creates a cabinet (.cab) file containing ActiveX controls to be downloaded to a Web browser . Any dependencies need to be handled manually.

For some applications, the use of Visual Studio deployment tools may be overkill, so the developer has a couple of more simple ways to deploy applications:

• The Copy Project command is used to deploy a Web-based application. Because it does not use the deployment tools, it will only copy files across onto the target Web server. No configuration settings are carried over, so this is probably better used for subsequent file copies after initial deployment.

• XCOPY is probably the most basic method of copying files across. It will use the MSDOS XCOPY command to copy files from one place to another. No configuration settings are copied, and there is no automatic file protection, which could result in files accidentally being overwritten.

3.12.1 Visual Studio.NET Technology Decisions

The downside of having so much technology at hand is the need to choose a suitable combination for a particular solution.

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