VB.Net application deployment

[Carly]

Hello there,

Strangely enough until now I did not find any articles that describe in
a "crystal clear" way how to deploy a VB.NEt application.
1. Is it mandatory to have .net framework on the target computer?
2. I added to my windows form project a setup project and I built the
two projects. In the setup project folder I have now
....\release\setup.exe and setup1.msi files. I copied them on my target
computer. If I run setup1.msi file the setup process starts and seems
to work perfectly except for... nothing is installed. If I run
setup.exe the framework is installed...then if I run the setup1.msi
again still nothing is installed... Any ideas???
3. I understand that for installation customization purposes one can
use the Installer class. Can anybody point me to a good article about
using the installer class.

Thank you,

Carly

 

[Samuel Shulman]

What VS version do you have?

 

[cj]

I know my way of doing it isn't the "right" way and it's not the way I'd
want to give a program to a customer but for the in-house, system type
apps I write, here's what I do.

Make sure you set build/configuration manager to release. Recompile the
solution. copy the files from bin/release to the dir you want the
program to be run from and make a icon pointing to the exe. Then again
it seems 2005 is putting more in the release dir than needed. It used
to be two files most times.

No install program needed.

Also note the machines I work on all have the .net framework already on
them. Yes, they need that.

 

[cj]

sorry object/release dir

I know my way of doing it isn't the "right" way and it's not the way I'd
want to give a program to a customer but for the in-house, system type
apps I write, here's what I do.

Make sure you set build/configuration manager to release. Recompile the
solution. copy the files from bin/release to the dir you want the
program to be run from and make a icon pointing to the exe. Then again
it seems 2005 is putting more in the release dir than needed. It used
to be two files most times.

No install program needed.

Also note the machines I work on all have the .net framework already on
them. Yes, they need that.

 

[Guest]

1. Is it mandatory to have .net framework on the target computer?

Yes, but with .NET 2.0's ClickOnce deployment, it can detect if the
framework is installed or not.

2. I added to my windows form project a setup project and I built the
two projects. In the setup project folder I have now
...\release\setup.exe and setup1.msi files. I copied them on my target
computer. If I run setup1.msi file the setup process starts and seems
to work perfectly except for... nothing is installed. If I run
setup.exe the framework is installed...then if I run the setup1.msi
again still nothing is installed... Any ideas???

In your setup project, did you add "Application Output" to the list of
files to pacakge?

3. I understand that for installation customization purposes one can
use the Installer class. Can anybody point me to a good article about
using the installer class.

http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Article/20849/