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I am working on a .net project with VS 2012 which needs an installer for users to be able to install the application in their computer. But, I can not find the usual VS 2010 like installer project in the new project dialog. After looking on the internet for a while I see that VS 2012 does not include the option anymore. So, how am I supposed to create an installer? Does Microsoft provide any kind of alternative? What are the other available options that I can use in this case? Any kind of help is highly appreciated.

Hossain Muctadir
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The setup and deployment project was retired. There are alternatives:

  • WiX Toolset (mentioned in the above link)
  • InstallShield LE (direct replacement of Setup & Deployment project)

Besides, there are also a number of commercial software for building installation packages.

Yan Sklyarenko
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  • Thanks. Which one do you recommend? – Hossain Muctadir Apr 08 '13 at 10:51
  • It all depends on your requirements. You can start faster with InstallShield, WiX has steep learning curve. On the other hand, InstallShield hides details from you, and one day you might want to get exactly what you instruct your installer to, and WiX is better from this point of view. Some more info here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3961750/what-are-limitations-of-wix-and-wix-toolset/ – Yan Sklyarenko Apr 08 '13 at 13:35
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You could try and create a ClickOnce installer. However, this is just a quick suggestion, and by no means will it replace a full installer project (like the ones available in VS2010). However, if all you want is to put some files on the target machine and let the user run them, this should suffice. ClickOnce has a small added bonus of installing any (most?) prerequisites.

Publish = ClickOnce

MBender
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