Microsoft KB Archive/814710

= Walkthrough segments &quot;Reducing the size of an installer&quot; and &quot;Create a launch condition&quot; do not apply to Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio .NET =

Article ID: 814710

Article Last Modified on 5/11/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Architect
 * Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Developer
 * Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Academic Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002 Enterprise Architect
 * Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002 Enterprise Developer
 * Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002 Academic Edition
 * MSDN 2003 Universal Edition

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SUMMARY
Deployment is the process of distributing a finished application or a component for installation on other computers. To deploy an application, you must specify parameters such as what to deploy, where to deploy, and how to deploy. In Microsoft Visual Studio 2005or in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, you can deploy applications by adding one or more deployment projects to your solution. Each deployment project includes instructions for how to install the files and the components on a destination computer.

The Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio .NET documentation provides Deployment Walkthroughs to help you to work in various deployment scenarios. The Deployment Walkthrough, &quot;Reducing the Size of an Installer by Excluding Merge Modules,&quot; is a part of the series of walkthroughs that are included with the Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio .NET documentation. The two segments of the Deployment Walkthrough, &quot;To exclude the .NET Framework merge module&quot; and &quot;To create a launch condition that checks for the .NET Framework,&quot; are guidelines for creating Deployment projects in earlier versions of Visual Studio .NET.

These segments do not apply to Visual Studio 2005 and to Visual Studio .NET. The &quot;More Information&quot; section of this article discusses why these segments do not apply to these versions of Visual Studio 2005 and of Visual Studio .NET. The &quot;More Information&quot; section of this article also discusses how to deploy applications that you build in Visual Studio 2005 or in Visual Studio .NET to a destination computer that does not have the .NET Framework run-time files installed.



MORE INFORMATION
In the earlier versions of Visual Studio .NET, the merge module Dotnetfxredist_x86_enu.msm was automatically added for any application that was built by using the .NET Framework. However, the addition of the merge module increases the size of the installer. The size of the installer is an overhead for the project deployment.

To avoid the large installer size, the merge modules are not included in deployment projects in Visual Studio .NET. However, the merge module contains the .NET Framework run-time files that must be installed on the destination computer for the application to run. Therefore, you must verify that the .NET Framework is already installed on the destination computer. By default, the launch condition for deployment projects in Visual Studio 2005 and in Visual Studio .NET are set to verify that these files are installed on the destination computer.

Note Typically, the .NET Framework run-time files are installed on the destination computer where you want the deployed application to run. If you set the EXCLUDE property in the project Properties to False (to include the merge module Dotnetfxredist_x86_enu.msm), and then build the setup project, you may receive the following error message:

dotNETFXRedist_x86_enu.msm must not be used to redistribute the .NET Framework. Please exclude this merge module.

If the .NET Framework run-time files are not installed, you may run the Dotnetfx.exe file that is included with the Visual Studio .NET Windows Components Update (WCU) installation media. You may also redistribute the Dotnetfx.exe file with your setup project.

