Developing Installers

Apart from assisting in development and debugging of applications, Visual Studio provides integrated toolsets of creating installers for Windows and Web applications. (Windows applications are typically installed on individual desktops, whereas Web applications are typically installed on a Web server or a Web farm [multiple servers].) This functionality is provided by the Setup Wizard project types (see Figure 5.36).

Figure 5.36. The Setup Project Wizard.

In this section, you'll develop an installer for the Windows application that you created earlier. There are two basic ways of achieving that: One is using the Setup Project and then assigning the output of the WindowsApplication1 project as the file to be installed in the setup process, or you can use the wizard, which allows you to select the files to be installed (see Figure 5.37).

Figure 5.37. Setup Wizard ”select components to be installed.

After the basic files have been referenced by the installer, the next step is to create a shortcut to the application in the end- user 's Programs shortcuts. You can do so by creating the shortcut and then moving it to the Users Programs Menu folder (Figure 5.38). The installer automatically includes the core .NET framework runtime if that is required to be installed as well. You can build this setup project like other projects and then either set it up as the Startup Project or invoke the Setup.exe created in the appropriate location.

Figure 5.38. Setup project files.

Running the installer (Figure 5.39) is like running any other Windows Installer setup program. The installer prompts the user for the installation directory, installs the required files, and then configures the shortcuts under the Programs menu.

Developing Installers