Best way to deploy Visual Studio application that can run without installing

Question

I wrote a fairly simple application with C   NET and can t figure out a good way to publish it  It s a sort of a  tool  that users would only run once  or run every few months  Because of this  I m hoping that there is a way I could deploy it where it wouldn t need installing to run  it could just be run by double clicking an EXE file straight after downloading     However  it still needs  somehow  to include the correct version of  NET  libraries  etc  so it will run correctly  I know this is included when using ClickOnce  but that still installs the application onto the user s computer   Is there a way this can be done   EDIT -  bin Debug  myAppName application myAppName exe myAppName exe config myAppName exe manifest myAppName pdb myAppName vshost application myAppName vshost exe myAppName vshost exe config myAppName vshost exe manifest extraLibrary dll   as well as two folders  app publish Resources

User · Answer

First you need to publish the file by    BUILD -  PUBLISH  or by right clicking project on Solution Explorer -  properties -  publish or select project in Solution Explorer and press Alt   Enter NOTE  if you are using Visual Studio 2013 then in properties you have to go to BUILD and then you have to disable define DEBUG constant and define TRACE constant and you are ready to go   Save your file to a particular folder  Find the produced files  the EXE file and the  config   manifest  and  application files  along with any DLL files  etc   - they are all in the same folder and typically in the bin Debug folder below the project file   csproj   In Visual Studio they are in the Application Files folder and inside that you just need the  exe and dll files   You have to delete ClickOnce and other files and then make this folder a zip file and distribute it     NOTE  The ClickOnce application does install the project to system  but it has one advantage  You DO NOT require administrative privileges here to run  if your application follows the normal guidelines for which folders to use for application data  etc

User · Answer

It is possible and is deceptively easy     Publish  the application  to  say  some folder on drive C   either from menu Build or from the project s properties   Publish  This will create an installer for a ClickOnce application  But instead of using the produced installer  find the produced files  the EXE file and the  config   manifest  and  application files  along with any DLL files  etc   - they are all in the same folder and typically in the bin Debug folder below the project file   csproj   Zip that folder  leave out any   vhost   files and the app publish folder  they are not needed   and the  pdb files unless you foresee debugging directly on your user s system  for example  by remote control    and provide it to the users    An added advantage is that  as a ClickOnce application  it does not require administrative privileges to run  if your application follows the normal guidelines for which folders to use for application data  etc     As for  NET  you can check for the minimum required version of  NET being installed  or at all  in the application  most users will already have it installed  and present a dialog with a link to the download page on the Microsoft website  or point to one of your pages that could redirect to the Microsoft page - this makes it more robust if the Microsoft URL change   As it is a small utility  you could target  NET 2 0 to reduce the probability of a user to have to install  NET   It works  We use this method during development and test to avoid having to constantly uninstall and install the application and still being quite close to how the final application will run

[c#] Best way to deploy Visual Studio application that can run without installing

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