Visual basic .net 2008 Deployment

Question

Is it possible to make a setup and deployment project in VB.net 2008, every site i have looked at on google says to just select it from the project list. It isnt in the project list for me to select. Are these types of projects not available in the express version? How can I make an installer, other than using one of the setup and deployment projects? (I know there is a publish button, but that doesn't make a proper installer and installs to the appdata folder which is not what i want it to do)

Any help is appreciated

Answer 1

Express editions do not have these project types. They support ClickOnce only, per this chart:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zcbsd3cz(VS.80).aspx

This carries over to the 2008 versions as well.

Edit - Added

See here for using ClickOnce from an Express edition:

http://blogs.msdn.com/vbteam/archive/2008/10/02/looking-for-setup-and-deployment-project-templates.aspx

Answer 2

You would need to use another program, such as innosetup (http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php), to create a setup.exe. Microsoft has to give you some reason to purchase their software.

Answer 3

You could use Inno Setup

It pretty much will do what you need to create an installer package. Oh yeah, and it's free.