Question

I have created a simple inventory application in WPF. How should I give it to client now ?

One way what I did: I have set my AppPresentation solution as start up project and I can see all the DLLs from other solutions are added in the Debug and Release directory of this solution.

When I copy the Release folder to other drive (from D: to C:) and run the AppPresentation.exe some Error occurs about some DLL missing but I can still see those DLLs in this folder.

However when I copy the debug folder to the other drive and run the application i.e. AppPresentation.exe now I can run the application successfully with complete working.

Can I give this entire Debug folder to the client and expect that it runs perfectly on his machine ? I will ensure .NET 4.0 Framework is installed on that machine (but not Visual Studio ofcourse). Will this work ?

Answer 1

It will work as long as you have the required version of the .NET Framework installed on the client and all the necessary dll’s have been included,

Ideally you should look at creating a Visual Studio setup project:

Using a setup project has the following advantages:

1. All your dll’s and other files required for the application to run will be consolidated in one setup file
2. You can specify prerequsites such as .NET Framework which will prevent installation until all the required components have been installed first.
3. Users can specify exactly where on disk the application should be installed without manually copying the dlls (as would be the case in your scenario).

This is but a few advantages of using a setup project but hopefully you’ll be convinced to give it a try as it is the preferred way of installing Windows applications

P.S If your setup project gets more complex consider looking at Wix