publishing app in vb.net and creating setup.exe

i am publi开发者_JAVA百科shing an app in vb.net. it's creating setup.exe and a folder called application files. i am told that setup.exe is stand alone and does not need any other files. is this right? because when i put setup.exe in a different directory it says that some files are missing.

If you're using the "Setup and Installation Package" project from within visual studio, then that's not the case. The actual setup files are the .MSI file and setup.exe is just a placeholder for the Windows Installer application.

If you're using ClickOnce, then you need the entire published directory (especially the manifest, as that tells the ClickOnce protocol where everything is at.

That said, other installer creation systems work differently.