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After compiling a Visual Studio setup project: there are two files produced: application.msi and setup.exe

If I run application.msi, the new version is not rewritten to the old version. It is likely to run setup.exe for all of the cases. That made confusion if I give two files to the clients. How can I made just one file?

halfer
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olidev
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  • See also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/42366/what-does-the-exe-do-in-the-visual-studio-setup-project-output – OneWorld Feb 26 '13 at 10:00

2 Answers2

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The Setup.exe file is a BootStrap file used to check for the prerequisites that you setup in your Setup Project's Prerequisites Dialog. The MSI package itself is what determines the applications installation parameters. You should have Remove Previous Versions as true and make sure that your application's Assembly version has been incremented by at least the Build Number, otherwise if you are updating only the Revision number it will not be over written. The Assembly Version information Format is as follows. Major.Minor.Build.Revision. Make sure that you also change your setup projects Version number also.

Mark Hall
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You can package the MSI with setup.exe into a single self-extracted archive and launch setup.exe after it's unzipped.

Jacob Seleznev
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  • how can I pack the MSI into the setup.exe file? – olidev Aug 05 '12 at 11:10
  • Self-extracting Zip file is an executable file (.exe) that contains a Zip file and a small program to extract (unzip) the contents of the Zip file. Users can run (execute) a self-extracting Zip file just as they run any other program: just double click on the .exe file. You can use any Zip program ( e.g [this](http://kb.winzip.com/kb/?View=entry&EntryID=179) ) – Jacob Seleznev Aug 05 '12 at 12:44