Editors Used in Deployment

Deployment projects in Visual Studio provide a great deal of flexibility in determining where and how a solution will be deployed. In the process of deploying a solution, you might want to specify where files should be installed on a target computer, specify what registry keys should be added, or set special conditions or requirements for installation. You might also want to customize the user interface that is shown during installation, or run code to perform custom actions on a target computer.

The deployment editors are used to specify and customize settings and properties for all aspects of deployment. Most deployment projects contain six editors, which are described in the following topics.

Note

The User Interface Editor is not available for merge module projects, and none of the editors are available for Cab projects.

In This Section

• How to: Open the Deployment Editors
  Explains how to open the deployment editors.

• File Installation Management in Deployment
  Describes the File System Editor, which allows you to add project outputs, files, and other items to a deployment project and specify where they will be installed on the target computer.

• Registry Settings Management in Deployment
  Describes the Registry Editor, which allows you to specify registry keys and values to be added to the registry of the target computer.

• File Types Management in Deployment
  Describes the File Types Editor, which is used to establish file associations on the target computer.

• User Interface Management in Deployment
  Describes the User Interface Editor, which can be used to specify and set properties for predefined dialog boxes that are displayed during installation on the target computer.

• Custom Actions Management in Deployment
  Describes the Custom Actions Editor, which allows you to specify additional actions to be performed on the target computer at the end of an installation.

• Launch Condition Management in Deployment
  Describes the Launch Conditions Editor, which allows you to specify conditions that must be met in order to successfully run an installation.

Related Sections

• Windows Installer Deployment Tasks
  Provides links to topics describing various deployment tasks.