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For a testing usage of not very complex WPF applications I often don’t make installer – just, after building project, copy Bin>Debug folder content of a VS2008 project folder to a hard drive of a user computer and put an icon to a desktop. No records to windows registry.
Are there any drawbacks of such a way of using windows applications for testing period?
There’s nothing wrong with this approach at all – it is what’s called xcopy deployment. You don’t get a few things doing it this way:
Another benefit is that you can get your application onto a computer by a user who does not need administrative privileges to install.
It really comes down to your requirements. If you don’t need any features of an installer, then just copying the files is a good approach.
I’d agree with the other comments about using a release build though – especially if you are deploying for real use and not just testing.