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I have been building MSI's from Visual Studio Standard/Professional for many years, and have had endless issues with not the first iteration, but future builds. Typically, the assembly manifests don't get updated properly with dependencies when I up the versions of dependencies, or maybe the MSI will have issues packaging the right versions of DLL assemblies. Also, when I rebuild MSI's with multiple projects in the Solution that cross-reference each other, I often get warnings about multiple versions of the same assembly referenced, and often I have to delete and recreate the Setup Project entirely in order to get a good subsequent build. How do others solve this issue? Do you use something besides the Setup and Deployment project template? Do you use WIX?

Jay Imerman
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  • Note that setup projects are now gone (no longer in VS 2012+), so it's better to find something else. Wix is a good option, as are many commercial products... – Reed Copsey Oct 18 '13 at 20:54
  • Are they really gone, or perhaps not in the edition you have? I thought Setup projects were not every in the free Express editions, so maybe Professional or Standard? – Jay Imerman Oct 30 '13 at 02:27
  • They're really gone - they include InstallShield express now, and dropped setup projects entirely. (I have Ultimate - no setup projects even in the top end SKU) – Reed Copsey Oct 30 '13 at 17:13

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If you don't mind spending money, InstallShield has always been a top notch installer. I've used it many times and it can be customized a million different ways. Unfortunately, the price is a little salty.

For a free solution, Inno Setup works very well, however, it cannot create MSI's. It can only create .EXE executables.

As Reed suggested, Wix is also a very good option as well!

Icemanind
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  • Thank you SO much, I know InstallShield is about as salty as the Dead Sea, and Wix seemed very "propeller-head" - not very GUI or user-friendly. I'm going to give Inno a shot, frankly to me the fact that it is not an MSI is fine, although to some customers with deployment software it may be an issue. However, an EXE should be scriptable, and hopefully Inno will have a silent install capability. – Jay Imerman Oct 20 '13 at 14:06