Change build output type from .dll to .dll.deploy through MSBuild

Question

Hi all,

I am writing a script to mimic the behaviour of the Visual Studio publish target for ClickOnce applications. I have got everything working well except for the part where build output executable and config files are renamed to ..deploy (e.g..exe.deploy).

When I manually rename the files (using the ren command), I get warnings when I generate the application manifest - e.g

"lib.dll.deploy has mismatched identity 'lib', expected file name lib.deploy"

Does anyone know of a way to mimic the behaviour when the use ".deploy" file extension is checked in Visual Studio?

Answer 1

I found this post http://www.windowsdevelop.com/clickonce-setup--deployment-projects/clickonce-mage-tool-command-line-mageexe-11437.shtml which helped me along finding the solution.

Basically, you have to rename your application files with the .deploy extension after you've created the application manifest but before creating the deployment manifest.

I also found that using mage.exe to create the deployment manifest leads to other problems, so I ended up using the GenerateDeploymentManifest MSBuild task.