Package and Deployment Wizard

[ajay_vb]

Hi friends,
I used to create installation package in VB6 using Package and Deployment wizard. But I'm not getting how to do it in Vb.net. Can anybody please tell me where I can find Package and Deployment Wizard in VB.net and steps for creating the package. Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Ajay

[jmcilhinney]

There is no Package & Deployment Wizard. That doesn't mean that there aren't deployment tools though.

If you're using VB Express then the only inbuilt option is ClickOnce. You can right-click on your project and select Publish or you can open the Publish tab of the project properties. You should do some reading on ClickOnce before using it to find out what it can and can't do.

If you're using VS then you can use ClickOnce or you can add a Setup project to your solution. There's also a Setup Wizard project template that will allow you to initially configure a Setup project using a wizard. Any advanced steps must be performed after the wizard has completed. Again, there's plenty of information available on MSDN regarding Setup projects.

Having said all that, if your application is simple then you may prefer to just opt for XCOPY deployment, which is a fancy way of saying just copying the required files to the target machine. .NET apps and DLLs don't require registration so if you don't need to do anything beyond copy your EXE and maybe some supporting files then that's probably the easiest option. This will require the user to already have the appropriate .NET Framework version installed or to then install it manually, while the other two options can install the .NET Framework automatically if required, even downloading it if necessary.

[Hack]

Moved To Application Deployment

[dilettante]

Determining When to Use Windows Installer Versus XCOPY