Normal Setups in Visual Studio

Question

Just wondering if there's a way to make Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition generate normal exe files that are created by the installer for my app?

I am sick of the ClickOnce application files. I had all these file associations setup and now that I need to actually have an installer for my apps, the file associations setup in the code don't work because now they're "ClickOnce" app files and not normal exe files. And no, VS does not create any exe files at all for ClickOnce apps.

Any help is much appreciated

thank you :)

Answer 1

As far as I remember the Express edition do not provide tools for deployment, but still there are many free installers that can do the trick; you may want to try NSIS or InnoSetup, for example.

Answer 2

ProjectFolder\bin\Debug

Should contain .exe files for your application.

If you want to use the EXEs for deployment, however, you should create a "Release build."

Once you do that, your files will be in

ProjectFolder\bin\Release

Answer 3

Can VS Express create Setup.Exe? No.

If you examine the license you will find that the Express edition is not intended to make distributions (I don't have the exact wording here). So MS left the Setup generator out of the package.

You can use any 3rd party setup maker but then you might be violating the license.

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Edit: the above applies to VS2005 Express.

The licenses for 2008 and 2010 Express seem to be more lenient, do check.

Answer 4

Right Click your Solution > Add > Project > Other Project Types > Setup and Deployment > Visual Studio Installer > Setup Project