Deploying Applications

Deploying the Application

To deploy the application we need to copy Setup1.msi file to the target machine. Once copying is done,
double-click that file which opens the Windows Installer which is a new window which says "Welcome to Setup1 Setup Wizard". It looks like the image below (mine was Setup7, yours will be Setup1).

Click next to move to next window which allows us to specify the location where the application should be installed. It looks like the image below.

Select the location for installation and click next. Clicking next installs the application. The confirmation window looks like the image below.

Now, double-click the newly installed Deployment.exe file to run and get the desired result. You can select that from your Programs Menu or Desktop. That completes the process of Deploying Applications.

Make sure the Target Machine on which the application will be installed supports Windows Installer and .NET Framework.

XCOPY Deployment

In addition to the deployment tools included in Visual Studio .NET there are other alternative methods for deploying applications. In most cases, the deployment tools provide more robust installation. For some simple cases the alternative methods may be adequate.

XCOPY-deployment enables applications to be deployed to client machines simply by copying files into the desired application directory. With this method no complicated setup scripts or interactions with the system registry are required. In addition, the auto-downloading of applications for Windows makes the deployment of rich Windows-based applications as easy as deploying a Web page.

Xcopy Command

The DOS Xcopy command is a simple way to copy a project or application from one location to another. But it is recommended that you deploy your project rather than using Xcopy. The Xcopy command does not register or verify the location of assemblies. More importantly, using Xcopy to deploy an application will not take advantage of Windows Installer features, making it possible to overwrite files that could cause other applications to break.

To see the command-line syntax and options for the Xcopy command, type Xcopy /? in the Visual Studio command-prompt window.