deployment tools under .NET solutions

Question

Hi guys,

We all do code, small (like one .exe) or big applications (complete solutions) with web applications, windows applications, databases, help files, configuration files and registry values...

my question is simple, in my opinion that is, now that I need to deploy a web application and a windows application in just one installation setup:

What do you use to the deployment of your applications, regarding creating of help files, database scripts so we can create a database and tables, create a virtual directory for the web applications, add registry values to work with our windows application?

I just open Setup & Deployment from Visual Studio 2008, but is it me or it lack a lot of such features? is there any thing worst a try out there for this?

I know Inno Setup that they use here in the company, but it does not do all, any good tutorial that I should see? In my search I found out some products in Visual Studio Gallery, but none does all-in-one :(

Thank you.

Answer 1

We use FinalBuilder and FinalBuilder server here. Lets you build complicated build processes using a relatively nice build interface and launch them from a web application or on a timer.

Our "average" project will grab source from SVN, add the revision number to the version and build, grab the database scripts and upgrade or rebuild the database and deploy to either a webserver, ZIP it up for emailing or even create an ISO for it.

Answer 2

I strongly suggest NSIS, you can get a lot of help on the forums.

Answer 3

If you are into self harm you could look at WiX (http://wix.sourceforge.net). WiX is used by some of the product teams at Microsoft and is actually maintained by Microsoft employees, but it is pretty much their only open source project on SourceForge.

It is very powerful and has features for doing all that you want, but it is all done in XML and can be a little tricky to get going. On the bright side once it is set up it integrates will with automated builds because it has support for being inside Visual Studio (MSBuild support).

Answer 4

The setup and deployment projects have served me well in the past for simple setups like creating virtual directories and packaging files such as documentation, etc.

If you want more power have a look at WIX