What are the proper and complete steps to deploy a .NET application from Visual Studio for public use?

Question

I usually write C# programs for myself, or just parts of other applications. Now, I have been working on a project that I would like to eventually commercialize and I am interested in the easiest way to deploy a simple application from VS 2008 that will primarily be downloaded and installed. I am not just interested in installer choices, but build options, exception handling settings, and any other essential details.

The documentation on MSDN is a little overwhelming. Just the section on deployment how-to's has over 100 topics!

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms184415.aspx

What should I focus on and in what order? Does anyone have a personal checklist that they run through just to make sure all of the bases are covered?

Answer 1

For that scenario I'd avoid clickonce, so this one seems to be the most relevant for deployment.

In terms of complier options, the standard Release build should be good enough; you might want to consider a code obfuscation tool, depending on how good a lawyer you can afford if people decide to reverse engineer your code...

Answer 2

1. Get your licensing mechanism figured out. Serial numbers, activation, whatever. Test it.
2. Build your assemblies and obfuscate them. If the assemblies are small, I'd actually ILMerge them too - makes the whole thing more manageable.
3. Make an installer. ClickOnce is an option, albeit for the brave. Its major feature is that it self-updates. Which is problematic if you want to charge money for updates. I'd just use WiX and code self-updating myself - not exactly hard.