Setup project add folder

Is it possible to add a complete folder to a Setup Project so that Visual Studio will automatically add new files to your project that it finds in that folder?

Tuesday, November 6, AM. Hi, Floris Verstegen, What do you mean of complete folder? Do you mean to add all files and folders in a folder? In that case, I think there is no such option in Setup Project of Visual Studio unless all the files and folders are in the primary output of your application project, but it cannot detect any newly added files. So, I guess you would have to add all the files and folder structure manually.

Hope this helps, Regards. Thursday, November 8, AM. Hi Yu Guo, I did indeed mean the folder and all files in that folder and then let Visual Studio auto update the folder content. ThanX for you answer. Articles C. I hope you will understand it. This post can answer Solution of How to make a setup installer? Net 4. How to Add. Net Framework 4. How to run my project windows forms c in a different computer. How can I make a program work on different computers independent of.

NET Framework? C , how to Deploy C application on any computer? I mean no implementation, no building, just secured inside files. Your code inside your computer are going to be the same as unimplemented design if at the end of the day they are just debugged for errors and then no use in friends computers or just yours seeing its icon in the desktop. You can make your code and design to the real use and not just debugging by building it to create an assembly file where someone can double-click it and become happy.

But for larger commercial applications, this simple approach might not be enough; customers would like you to install the files in the appropriate directories, set up shortcuts and have it in start menu list. Just make them happy by creating. Visual Studio provides extensive help for deployment where by you can create a setup project for your application.

In Visual Studio , Microsoft has extended its windows installer, Click Once technology and added Install Shield limited edition. These three available templates in VS are going to be the discussion in this post. Windows Installer deployment enables you to create installer packages to distribute to users. Windows Installer deployment is updated in Visual Studio Professional for the latest. NET Framework versions. You can target the. NET 4 versions in your windows and Web applications.

Additionally, you can check that any version of the. NET Framework is installed on the end-user computer, rather than checking for a specific version of the. NET Framework. Let us look at these available templates from the picture below;. Setup Project Builds an installer for a Windows application, setup projects will install files into the file system of a target computer. In addition, a Setup Wizard is available to simplify the process of creating a Setup or Web Setup project.

Builds an installer for a Web application, the files for a Web Setup Projects are installed into a Virtual Root directory on Web servers.

The distinction between Setup and Web Setup projects is where the installer will be deployed. A merge module. Merge modules cannot be installed alone, but must be used within the context of a Windows Installer. Merge modules allow you to capture all of the dependencies for a particular component, ensuring that the correct versions are installed. Much the same as dynamic-link libraries allow you to share code between applications; merge modules allow you to share setup code between Windows Installers.

Creates a CAB file for downloading to an earlier Web browser. Unlike the other deployment project types, there are no editors provided for working with Cab projects. Files and project outputs can be added to a Cab project in Solution Explorer, and properties can be set in the Properties window or in the Project Property pages. After the wizard has finished, now you have completed to create an installer for your application.

Now save all changes and start to build your application, if building completed successfully, build the installer. Go to where you have saved the solution and you will see an installer file inside the debug folder in your setup project directory. But I think this is not enough for you! You need to go deeper in customization, so follow me in the following issues:.

The deployment editors are used to configure an installer that you create with a deployment project. To open an editor, select a deployment project and the buttons will appear as shown below or alternatively, right-click your deployment project, point to View, and then click the name of the editor that you want to open.

File system editor; When the project is added to the solution, the first thing to be displayed is the file system editor. The picture above shows file system editor. To put shortcut of your application in start menu or desktop go to application folder , right click on primary output from … Or any other files which you want to create shortcut for them , select create shortcut to… then the shortcut will appear, cut it and paste to the folder where you want a shortcut to appear.

Also you can add project outputs in the target folder using the same way explained below just select project output… instead of a file. The user interface editor helps you to customize the installation wizard interface.

The Install section contains dialog boxes that will be displayed when the end user runs the installer; the Admin section contains dialog boxes that will be displayed when a system administrator uploads the installer to a network location. The Registry Editor allows you to specify registry keys and values to be added to the registry of the target computer.

Playing with registry need more experienced person otherwise it may course some trouble in target computer, but you can add or remove keys according to what your project needs. To add a registry key select a top level node, in the action menu click new key , then type the new name and edit properties of the key in the properties window as necessary.

To add a sub key select a key node, in the action menu point to new and then key and you can edit its properties from the properties window.

Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Geoffrey Geoffrey 71 1 1 silver badge 1 1 bronze badge. Peter Peter 1 1 silver badge 10 10 bronze badges. AikenDev AikenDev 39 1 1 bronze badge. The problem is to include the actual contents of an external folder which content is not included in any project and is varying over time. Selecting "File" or "Assembly" resulted in missing files and would not build properly.

This must be done every time as mentioned. Could you just add all the files from the folder with a macro?? It can be a solution. I don't know much about macros on VStudio, so 2 questions: -How easy is to change the macro to browse the file system? The macro is just a function like any other, that do things on the IDE. Sean Sean 1, 1 1 gold badge 22 22 silver badges 27 27 bronze badges.

Brandon Moore Brandon Moore 8, 15 15 gold badges 61 61 silver badges bronze badges. OH no you can drag and drop files and folders to setup directory in vs. Majid Saber Majid Saber 1 1 1 bronze badge. Samir Ahmed Samir Ahmed 11 1 1 bronze badge. In the FileSystem editor, navigate to the the left side.

Then right click on the application folder and click Add and select folder. Give the name to the folder On the right side of the FileSystem editor, right click and select Paste All the contents of the folder will get copied into the newly created folder in step 2. This is a simple straight forward manual solution, with requiring any macros.

Also drag and drop does not work in this case. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. Post as a guest Name. Email Required, but never shown.