How to make generic installation for my program

How to make generic installa开发者_开发技巧tion for my C# program, that will work on Win XP, Win 7 32bit and Win 7 64bit ?

I need that all the related components (like Framework... Crystal Reports...MDAC....) will be include and will install only the program that the OS is missing

Thanks in advance

What version of Visual Studio are you using? It matters, because if you're using Express, you're going to need a 3rd party tool If you're using Professional or higher, you can just create a Setup project as described here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307353

if you weren't worried about required components, of course, you could just do an XCOPY deployment, but since you specifically need your prerequisites included with the install, you need to use a tool like the setup project 9which creates an MSI file) or using a third party tool like Installshield.

i think

1- Create 3 separate packages for (Win Xp,Win7-32 , Win7-64)

2- Ask user if user is downloading from the website and push require download from the server. Alternatively , you can write a samll silverlight based application to get the details of user machine.

3- If 2 point is not true than while installing on a user machine get the details first and choose manually which pakage to install.

why i am telling to create specific package because of Microsoft issues pathches time to time and you may need to change the package so keep it seperate will definately help you.