What installer options are there for Visual Studio 2012 Express for Desktop

visual-studio-2012 windows-installer visual-studio-express
EricTheRed picture EricTheRed · Sep 29, 2012 · Viewed 9k times · Source

So Microsoft released Visual Studio 2012 Express for desktop apps. That's great, but how does one create an installer for open source apps that are built in Visual Studio Express? There are no installer templates available by default, and they have disabled browsing the online gallery. Sure, I could purchase something like InstallShield, but that kind of defeats the purpose of an open source application if you ask me. Any suggestions?

Answer

Joachim Isaksson picture Joachim Isaksson · Sep 29, 2012

You can use the open source NSIS or WiX tools to create fairly nice installers.

Since both should work without the Visual Studio integration that Express won't give you, they should both be usable (even if not quite as nicely) without problems.

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