ASP.NET + C# -- Deploying a multi-project solution

Question

I have a multi-project ASP.NET + C# solution. Tonight, I was planning on writing a quick (separate) VB app that yanks out all DLLs, ASPX, Config, etc files and slaps them into a 7zip file for deployment to the test server.

Is there a more elegant solution than this?

My development environment is VWD2008Express.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Answer 1

If your version lacks setup projects, you can still set up the constituent projects to output their binaries to the same directory.

Answer 2

The short is whatever works for your situation. At work, I use a custom MSBuild file that handles this - including zipping up all of the deployables for easy distribution into our QA and Production environments.

Answer 3

I suggest that you look at cruise control .net and NAnt which will allow you to take care of all of this type of stuff easily. No need for zipping to move the files (though you can zip and create a backup!). You can use msbuild to do the pre-compile. Rick Straul wrote a great tool that you can tap into that does this for you...tells you what the appropriate msbuild commands are (http://www.west-wind.com/presentations/AspNetCompilation/AspNetCompilation.asp).