Have VS 2005, easy way to deploy..?

[ucdcrush]

Im new to visual studio and .net development but have done a fair amount of VBA work.

I made a simple gas milage computer by doing new project> VB > windows> windows application. Now I publish it which makes a setup.exe file, however when I install it on a computer without .net (my home computer) it goes to install .net framework.

Is there a way to publish programs with visual studio 2005 that do not require .NET framework? I would like to write very simple windows apps like we've all downloaded and that do not necessarily setup.exe, installation, downloading framework etc.

I basically want to make a very simple standalone EXE program.. is that possible with VS?

Should I be using some over development system? Sorry if these questions have obvious answers, I'm new to this.

[Hack]

Welcome to the forums.

Is there a way to publish programs with visual studio 2005 that do not require .NET framework? I would like to write very simple windows apps like we've all downloaded and that do not necessarily setup.exe, installation, downloading framework etc.

No. The framework has to be installed for your program to work.

I basically want to make a very simple standalone EXE program.. is that possible with VS?

No. That is not even possible with VB6, much less VB2005.

Welcome to windows development.

[RobDog888]

You can make a "standalong" exe in vb6 to the point where you only need the msvbvmm60.dll by writting your program using all APIs and only APIs that are dependant upon the standard Windows dlls.

Either way between VB 6, VBA, .NET you will need some kind of dependancies. If you want a stand alone exe then you would have to look at writting it in C++

.NET was designed around the framework as a common set of runtimes. think of it as the engine for your car. You dont want to install your engine, then your car wont run.

[Hack]

.NET was designed around the framework as a common set of runtimes. think of it as the engine for your car. You dont want to install your engine, then your car wont run.

And this is true even if all your "car" does is

MessageBox.Show "Hello World"

[RobDog888]

You forgot the parenthesis

MessageBox.Show("Hello World")

[Kasracer]

Is there a way to publish programs with visual studio 2005 that do not require .NET framework? I would like to write very simple windows apps like we've all downloaded and that do not necessarily setup.exe, installation, downloading framework etc.

I basically want to make a very simple standalone EXE program.. is that possible with VS?

Yes it's possible but you will not be able to use the .Net framework in any of your applications. That means you'll be using either C or C++.

[ucdcrush]

Thank you for the replies. I started reading on MSDN (link)link and it says

Windows Forms applications in Visual C++ use .NET Framework classes and other .NET features with the new Visual C++ syntax.

so it appears I cannot use Visual Studio to make windows forms programs that stand on their own since they use .NET . Is there a visual-studio-like thing where I could use C++ for Windows-forms type programs?

[Kasracer]

so it appears I cannot use Visual Studio to make windows forms programs that stand on their own since they use .NET . Is there a visual-studio-like thing where I could use C++ for Windows-forms type programs?

Windows Forms is a class in the .Net framework so you cannot use it to create appications that don't rely on the framework. There is no application that will allow you to make windows forms without the .Net framework because, again, it's a Control in the .Net framework.

Having said that, I would suggest doing a lot more research into programming before doing anything. C++ can use the Win32 API, MFC, ALT, wxWidgets and even qt to make applications that have a GUI and won't require the .Net framework and you can use all of those technologies in Visual Studio. In fact, C++'s project templates have ready made examples for Win32, MFC and ALT.

[ucdcrush]

actually I just stumbled across Dev-C++, will try with that. thanks..

[Kasracer]

actually I just stumbled across Dev-C++, will try with that. thanks..

Why? If you already paid for Visual Studio 2005, why would you drop it for an IDE that does the samething with less features?

I don't get it

[ucdcrush]

Why? If you already paid for Visual Studio 2005, why would you drop it for an IDE that does the samething with less features?

I don't get it

My mistake. I thought I'd be able to drag n' drop controls with Dev C++ but from what I can see I can't do that there. And I can't do it in VS 2005 unless I want to rely on .NET, which I don't. At least that's my (feeble) understanding at this point.

If that is the case I will return to playing with VS 2005 (side note, I got it free for attending the opening launch "celebration" last year, just starting to play with it though).

Thanks.

[Kasracer]

My mistake. I thought I'd be able to drag n' drop controls with Dev C++ but from what I can see I can't do that there. And I can't do it in VS 2005 unless I want to rely on .NET, which I don't. At least that's my (feeble) understanding at this point.

Dev C++ doesn't support drag and drop. wxWidget's edition of Dev C++ does but it's very buggy.

Visual Studio 2005 also supports some drag and drop without .Net when creating dialog in C++.

What you need to understand is that there is a trade off between using a framework like .Net and not using it. The .Net framework requires it to be installed for any .Net application to work but it makes GUI creation extremely simple. Creating a C++ application that includes no framework requires that includes a GUI is much more challenging.

I'd suggest picking up a book on using Visual C++, MFC, or even wxWidgets or qt.

[Al42]

Or think of using a language that's implemented with a smaller library.