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I am developing a Windows form application which I want to integrate with my website on server. My problem is that when I created setup for my application then it gave me two files;- one msi file and other setup file. I have to provide a zip folder to the user who downloads this software. I want to give only setup.exe to user. Is it possible? If it is then how? Please help... I created my setup by using this link...

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/deepak.sharma00/how-to-create-an-installer-for-a-winform-application-using-s/

Thanks in Advance

Elise van Looij
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yash
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5 Answers5

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i solved it. Convert msi file into exe file. Thats it. There are lot of msi to exe converter on internet. msi works same as setup.exe works.. Thanks for your Response.

yash
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You can try using WiX installer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiX just as I did for my Windows form application installer. You can choose whether to get .msi or .exe as a result.

Andrew
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If you haven't specified any prerequisites you can just share the .msi. Setup.exe is just a bootstrapper that will check for the prerequisites and install them before installing the .msi.

Alternatively you can use the NSIS installer to package the .msi and setup.exe together in an .exe file

Community
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Rui
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  • NSIS Installer make them into single exe file but it doen't install files inside it. i don't want this. Can you please explain more about prerequestics... – yash Mar 04 '14 at 11:07
  • @user3346501 Imagine you don't have the .net framework installed. You can specify it should be installed in the prerequisites. Here's a good [**resource**](http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/35976/Add-Prerequisites-of-NET-Framework-in-Visual-Studi) that shows how you can add prerequisites. If it is reasonable to assume you don't require any attributes, just the .msi file should be fine – Rui Mar 04 '14 at 11:10
  • ok but i want to give my user a single exe file so that he can install my application. what should i do fot it? – yash Mar 04 '14 at 11:16
  • You can just double click the .msi file and it will install. If you specifically want a .exe file then I suggest using something other than visual studio's Setup project. [WiX](http://wixtoolset.org/) is an option. – Rui Mar 04 '14 at 11:18
  • how to use wix in my wndows form application?? Is there any procedure to use it? – yash Mar 04 '14 at 11:30
  • @user3346501 No easy way I'm afraid, you'll have to learn it. It is a completely different tool and you won't be able to reuse any of VS's setup project. From my understanding NSIS would allow you to package everything together and you can configure it to run your setup.exe (or .msi) automatically. NSIS is probably less work than WiX in your case since you wan't to reuse what you already have. Unfortunately both you require you to get out of your comfort zone and learn a new tool, which I guess is what you are trying to avoid. – Rui Mar 04 '14 at 11:35
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Assuming you actually have prerequisites to install, then you just need to get a tool that can pack your MSI and setup.exe into a single exe file (I think WinZip can do this). Then you get a single exe that will extract your bootstrapper set.exe and MSI file to a location and run that setup.exe. So you just need to pick the tool that will do that.

Whatever you end up doing, don't do anything that ends up downloading your MSI into IE's temp files folder where it will disappear. Put it somewhere it's available for repair.

Also, maybe you don't actually need to download it:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa368328(v=vs.85).aspx

PhilDW
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You can use Inno Setup which creates single .exe file.

It can contain files inside and it can detect and install prerequisites and various other stuff (DirectX, SQL servers, ...)

Slappy
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