Vinod,

To create the deployment project for multiple projects in a solution follow these steps:
1. Right click on your Solution and click on Add->New Project
2. on the Add New Project dialogue click on "Setup and Deployment Projects" and under templates "Web Setup Project" and type in the name and click OK
3. on the "File System on Target Machine" pane select the "Web Application Folder" then on the right hand pane right click and click on Add->Project Output
4. on the "Add Project Output Group" you have Project drop down box and the list box bellow it. From the drop down box select the project and from the list box select whatever you want to include in your setup project (in my case i would select "Primary Output" and "Content Files" & i don't want to include "Source Files" etc. For more information click on help and you will get tonnes of information to read and its been well explained) and click OK. Repeat this step for each of your stand alone projects.
When you do this keep this in mind that each project will have its own setup file based on the path you have selected. But if you have multiple project in your Solution and they are referencing each other then you have to do this only for your Startup project; rest everything is handle by the Setup process.:D

P.S.: if you're building Web Application then on the "File System on Target Machine" pane you may have to create separate Web Application Folder for each stand alone application to have its own virtual directory.

To build it right click on the Setup Project you just created and click on either Build (recreates to reflect only the changes) or ReBuild (disregards previous build and rebuilds from scratch)

Hope, this helps you out. These instruction are to create a web setup for ASP.net (web application) project. If you're talking about the Windows Application then i haven't tried that one yet and i assume its almost same or simpler than this process :):)

One more thing i forgot in my previous posting is before trying to build your setup project make sure you close all the open files in the Visual Studio. Otherwise you'll have lots of fun with meaning less error messages

Also, keep in mind that even though it says unable to build folder XXXX, it still creates the Setup files perfectly and the deployed application works without any problems for me. I get these folder errors for Image folders and I could not figure out what causes the problem, yet. I did not bother to find out more because I just don't waste my valuable time in Microsoft's Stupid error messages and i am happy as long as the application works

Hi vpdsouza,

Even I do the same thing, perhaps this is my first time I got stuck on this issue. It doesn't package the folder which is necessary for my web application to run smoothly. The main worry is if that folder is not deployed properly to client's server my whole efforts will go waste.
But there must have been something behind it. and I am not getting one thing that, why microsoft hasn't come up with the solution. I could not find any such information to get rid of this problem.

Still I'll insist all you out there, if you could find any post or any link stating solution for this, kindly revert back.


Vinod Pawar
India

Hello there,

During last couple of days I was struggling to build a web setup using Visual Studio .Net. Finally I had done it. But Standard way did not work for me. Standard way means, the process that usually followed to prepare a web setup (even I follow). You must have seen what problems I had to face. I felt, I should post whatever I have done (workaround) in order to prepare a customized web setup. I have always heard about xcopy deployment. I have never used it. But deploying a web application using xcopy is sort of manual activity and it also needs access to the web server and getting access to web server is not possible always when you are working for a professional organization. Then what to do.

Ff Xcopy works in your case means this workaround will help you out to automate the process.

Open Visual Studio .Net IDE.
From File menu select New > Project
Select Setup and Deployment project from Project Types.
Select Web Setup Project from Templates.
In Name textbox enter the name you prefer to be your web setup file should have (the compiled .msi file will be created with this name only)
Delete the bin folder from Web Application Folder File System Pan as we already have bin folder in our web application folder.
Right Click the project name in Solution Explorer and click on Properties Option.
In Property Dialog click on Configuration Manager Button at top right corner.
In Configuration Manager Dialog select Release from Active Solution Configuration dropdown list and click close. Click OK.
Right Click on Web Application Folder in File System Pane and click Properties from shortcut menu.
In Properties window set VirtualDirectory property to the virtual directory name your web application will use.
There are some properties those can be used to set the permissions on specific folders including Virtual Directory.
i.e. AllowDirectoryBrowsing, AllowReadAccess, AllowScriptSource, AllowWriteAccess etc.

Once All the required settings are done, you can use build solution to build setup. This way you can automate things those are to be done manually.

After setup is built, two new folders (i.e. Debug and Release) are created in the folder which is being specified as location of the Project. In Release folder you will find compiled setup files.

If any doubt or problem, just post

Vinod Pawar
India