DEPLOYING YOUR VB.NET PROJECTS AS STANDALONE EXE FILE

Here's how:

Note: Its now clear that you have already a project you wanted to deploy. So this tutorial is just to show how to deploy that project.

1. Open the project you wanted to deploy(make stand alone exe)

2. Press Ctrl + Shift + 8 on your keyboard to start building your project. That will only take a few seconds, so proceed to step 3 if you know that building is already done.

3. Press Ctrl + Shift + N on your keyboard to make a new project. Just follow the image below. If you cant find the correct project type, just press the plus sign(+) beside the "other project types". Then select "Setup and Deployment".
a. You can change the name if you want.
b. Click browse and change the location(where the exe file will be saved). Change it to desktop so that it will be easily located.



4. Click OK to open the Setup Wizard. The Setup wizard window looks like the image below.
[img:5766]http://www.startvbdotnet.com/extras/images/deploy1.gif[/http://www.startvbdotnet.com/extras/images/deploy1.gif[/img:5766]

5. Click next on the above pane to take you to second pane in the Wizard. The new pane allows us to create deployment projects both for Windows and Web Applications. Here, select the radio button which says "Create a setup for Windows Application" as this is deploying a windows application and click next. It looks like the image below.



6. Clicking next opens a new pane which has options like Deploying only primary output from the project or both the project and source code or content files. Check the checkbox which you want, in this case check the checkbox that says "Primary Output from Deploy" and click next. It looks like the image below.



7. Clicking next opens a new pane which asks if you want any additional files to be added. If you wish, you can include other files, like an icon for the application. In this example don't include any files and click next. It looks like the image below.


8. Doing that brings up the last pane of the Setup Wizard which looks like the image below. Click Finish on this pane.


9. Clicking finish opens up a File System window which looks like the image below.



*ACTUAL INSTALLATION AND DEPLOYMENT

1. To deploy the application we need to copy Setup1.msi file to the target machine. Once copying is done,
double-click that file which opens the Windows Installer which is a new window which says "Welcome to Setup1 Setup Wizard". It looks like the image below (mine was Setup7, yours will be Setup1).



2. Click next to move to next window which allows us to specify the location where the application should be installed. It looks like the image below.


3. Select the location for installation and click next. Clicking next installs the application. The confirmation window looks like the image below.


4. Now, double-click the newly installed Deployment.exe file to run and get the desired result. You can select that from your Programs Menu or Desktop. That completes the process of Deploying Applications.

Make sure the Target Machine on which the application will be installed supports Windows Installer and .NET Framework.






Source:
http://www.startvbdotnet.com/extras/deploy1.aspx


[silent killer]