Deployment project output question.

[DavidStein]

I have a vb.net solution that includes a windows form project and a deployment project. When I build for release, I get three files: Setup.exe, Setup.ini, and MyApp.msi. It appears that I can install the program by running either Setup.exe, or MyApp.msi - what's the difference? And which is preferred?

Thanks.

 

[vbkev]

Setup.exe is a bootstrapper for the .msi, basically it checks that the OS has a compatible version of the windows installer service, if not it upgrades it so your msi can run.

 

[DavidStein]

Thanks. I assume then that the preferred way to install the app is to run Setup.exe, since it checks for the Windows installer?

 

[vbkev]

yeah, however this is really only needed for pre win2k machines as 2k and xp have windows installer 1.1 (the latest version i believe) as part of the OS