How to make setup for .Net based application (C#,VB.Net) ?

Introduction

In this article I would like to elaborate the process of creating a setup project in Visual Studio.Net 1.1. You can follow same steps for creating installer for any complicated project.

Step I:

Create one Windows based application in VS.Net using any of the Languages i.e. C# or VB.Net.

Step II:

After your program is running and you are ready for the setup. To add setup to your existing application go to Go to File > Add Project > New Project.


After your program is running and you are ready for the setup. To add setup to your existing application go to Go to File > Add Project > New Project.

The window appears like below and you select the Project as Setup Project and give a Name and its Location.

Step III:

After creating setup project right click on project and than select view, it will show different possible operations, which you can perform with this setup project.

The options available are
File System
Registry
File Types
User interfaces
Custom Actions
Launch conditions

Step IV:

Click on File system, it is used to create file system on the target machine. Through this you can specify what details you want to provide at the target machine.

Step V:

Now in the new window, its time to add the files & folder’s used by the application.

First we add the Project Output file. Click on Project Output and a new popup appears. Select the appropriate choice. For a normal project we select as Primary Output File & Content Files.
it is used to create file system on the target machine. Through this you can specify what details you want to provide at the target machine.

To add Icons/Any specific folders, click on Add > Folder and Folder is added. Rename the folder as per your project requirements

After the Folder is create then add the files to the setup. These will be installed in the same fashion on the target machine

Step VI:

Now we are about to create the setup before that we will setup the program icon. To do it we will do this process :

When you click on Browse, a window gets popup. Now as the icons are already added into the application setup, just click on Browse to pint to that icon and click on ok.

Step VII:

Now final step is compile the setup project. After compilation you will notice that it has generated Setup.msi in the same location which you provided when you initially created the setup project.
You can supply this msi the target machine, when you run this msi at target machine it will create a virtual directory as well as create same folder structure, which you have specified in File System. This installer will also install the specified those libraries in the registry which are specified in the Registry.
Now you can browse that application at the target machine in same way as you have done at your own machine.