On Wed, 29 Nov 2017, at 04:45 PM, Dave Crozier wrote:
In VFP we are all used to writing the app, generating an .exe and placing it on a server for everyone to use in a network environment, no problem.
Em .. not of all us! Some of us install a local client and have the data/metadata on the server!
Anyway, pre VS 2012 MS used to have a 'Setup And Deployment' project type. With VS 2012 they brought in an 'Installshield Lite' solution instead. This was fairly universally regarded as A Bad Thing and so with VS 2013 and up there is now once again a Deployment Project template that you can add to your solution. This just produces a simple MSI installer. I've used it for installing Windows services and so forth.
Visual Studio versions 2012 and up also have an extension that allows you to use the Wix toolset. I've never used it but I believe it offers more fine control over what happens in the install albeit with increased complexity.
If you want to go for an approach outside of the VS IDE I'd look at using InnoSetup which has good support for .NET