simple .NET application installation problem

[Guest]

Hi,

I am developing a .NET app in C# and I am using the VS 2005 built in
installer. Everything works fine except that when I build the installation
project, it produces 2 files, a .msi and a setup.exe, when I really just want
1 setup.exe file. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Brendan Green]

I think the setup.exe is a bootstrapper, which runs the MSI anyway. You
should be able to just deploy the MSI without the .EXE in most cases.

 

[Gary Chang[MSFT]]

Hi,

Everything works fine except that when I build
the installation project, it produces 2 files, a .msi
and a setup.exe, when I really just want 1 setup.exe file.

The .msi file is your program's main installation package, and the
setup.exe file is that installation package's bootstrapper. A bootstrapper
is used to check the target machine whether have the necessary
prerequisites for installing/running the application, if not, it will
prompt/redirect the user to install those prerequisites at first. On the
other hand, if the prerequisites are ready, the bootstrapper will load the
corresponding .msi file to install the application. The general convention
is to deploy the bootstrapper (setup.exe) and the corresponding
installation package (appname.msi) in the target machine.

So in your case, your setup.exe will check the .NET Framework 2.0 or any
other prerequisites your application may require in the target machine. The
user should use the setup.exe to start the installation process, then the
setup.exe will invoke the installation package (appname.msi) install your
application automatically.


Thanks!

Best regards,

Gary Chang
Microsoft Online Community Support
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