ASP.NET Application Deployment Question

Question

Hello,

I'm creating an asp.net application/plug-in to run on a asp.net website/e-commerce solution. I want to make deployment easy for the user so that all they have to do is double click on an icon and all of my apps files will be placed into the proper folders on their asp.net website and all the necessary third-party files, like Microsoft's Visual Fox Pro 9 dll, will be installed. Is there a good tutorial or reference I can view to learn how to handle these deployment issues and are they even possible?

thanks

Answer 1

You can make an MSI (Microsoft Installer) which will do most of the work for them.

From Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 3.5 by Dino Esposito

Precompilation for deployment creates a file representation of the site made of assemblies and static files. This representation can be generated on any machine, and it can be packaged to MSI and deployed.

Answer 2

1. Create an MSI is definitely a good option to do this.
2. If you already have all the output with dependencies, then a batch copy script can do that for you.
3. If you are building from your source, then take a look at MsBuild/NAnt,and you can moidfy some post-build script to do that batch process for you.
4. You can also take a look at web deployment project.