VB.NET 2005 Tutorials

Deploying Windows Applications

In this tutorial you will learn how to Deploy a Windows-based Application, Create a Setup Project, Configuring Deployment Properties, Customizing a Setup Project, File System Editor, The Registry Editor, The File Types Editor, The User Interface Editor, The Custom Actions Editor and The Launch Conditions Editor

A number of different methodologies for deploying Windows based applications have been available since the first version of Visual Basic. In this lesson we shall briefly discuss the different technologies available and the evolution of this technology leading up to the creation of ClickOnce.

Windows Forms have traditionally been deployed in two ways—using the XCOPY deployment or the Windows installer.

XCOPY deployment describes an ideal deployment scenario that enables the copying of an entire directory structure to a computer on which the program is to be run. However, the current windows applications cannot be deployed in this manner as the installation process is a multi-step one. For instance applications using COM will have to copy the component to the user machine, register it, create dependencies between the component and the registry and then activate it.

Even simple applications would require other dependencies to be defined. The CLR, which tries to overcome the problem of coupling the registry with the component, has not completely eliminated the issue of multi-step deployment. Runtime issues, such as what files are required at runtime, also retard the achievement of the ideal.

The Windows Installer service, introduced as part of the Windows 2000 addressed some of the problems of existing installation programs. It is freely available to all Win9X and NT 4 platforms and is automatically installed with a number of Microsoft applications.

It is an Operating system component that implements all the required rules of setup and creates a file called a Windows installer package file(.msi). It divides the application in terms of the product to be installed, the feature (a unit of the product) to be installed and the component to be installed. This installer can be a single file or multiple files belonging together logically. The Windows Installer package file contains a list of actions and rules that need to be applied to these actions.

The implementation rules are not a part of this package. It also provides a rich API that can be used by developers to include features (eg. On demand installing) into their applications. A drawback of the Windows installer is that installation failure leaves the user system in an unstable condition. To circumvent this problem, the Windows installer provides a rollback option which rollbacks the system to its original state. Hence the Windows installer installation is referred to as transactional.

Visual Studio Installer(VSI) was an add on to the Visual Studio 6. VS.NET provided a set of project templates that helped the user set up the application and deploy it. The setup of the application involved creation of a process that would package up the application and define the mechanics by which the application can be deployed in another machine. Deployment of the application would imply the installation process on another machine.