CODEWITHSUNDEEP
visual-studio-2010setup-deployment
Shai
Shai

Reputation: 569

Building custom Installation-Package-Builder using visual studio's "Setup and Deployment" feature

Currently I am using Visual Studio’s feature “Setup and Deployment” to create installation package (Setup.MSI/Setup.exe file). As the part of building installation process, I put all required files (such as DLL, EXE, MDBs etc.) in a specific folder, and build installation package (MSI / EXE file). Since this process requires knowledge on how to use Visual Studio, I cannot simply ask anyone to build installation package for me. Therefore I wanted to build some custom installation builder (MSI/EXE builder) utilizing Visual Studio’s “Setup and Deployment”. The purpose of this “MSI/EXE builder” to give ability to build/rebuild installation packet without knowing anything about Visual Studio or programming skill. So s/he can generate installation packet by dropping provided all required file in specific folder structure, and pushing a button to regenerate installation package.

Can somebody point me where to start? Is there any API exist to accomplish this task?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1249

Answers (1)

Kuffs
Kuffs

Reputation: 35661

Visual Studios wdproj files are not fully scriptable via MSBuild.

The recommended way to accomplish this task is to use WIX.

http://wix.sourceforge.net/manual-wix2/wix_index.htm

You can then build the project using MSBuild commands (which you could write an application to do)

Upvotes: 1

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