Deploying ASP.Net 2.0 Beta 2 applications

Issue

You build a simple web application using .NET and SQL Express beta 2. Add a setup project to the solution. If the target machine has the .NET framework beta 2, setup runs fine. If not, the user is presented with the .NET framework license agreement, and it begins to automatically download 3 files. On the 2nd file, it terminates with a message indicating that WindowsInstaller-KB884016-v2-x86.exe has changed since it was initially published.

Resolution

1. When you add a web setup project to website solution created using VS 2005 Beta 2à right click on the WebSetup1 and WebSetup1 Property Pages would open up.

2. Click on the “Settings” button and the Pre-requisites page would open up. Uncheck the “Create setup Project” at the top as you can see in the screen. Click Ok.

3. Build the website. Then, add the Project Output Group to the WebSetup1.

4. Build the WebSetup1 Project. Open the website folder where the solution is i.e. “\\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\YourWebSite\WebSetup1\Debug” and you will have only the .msi file.

5. Download the bootstrapper_sample.exe from Microsoft site.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=BF253CFD-1EFC-4FC5-BA7E-6A6F21403495&displaylang=en

This is a self-extracting executable, and will produce two files when run: Setup.exe and Setup.ini. Place these in the same directory as your MSI file.

6. You will also need to obtain the .NET Framework Redistributable Package (Dotnetfx.exe). In your case, this would be NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package Beta 2 (x86)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7ABD8C8F-287E-4C7E-9A4A-A4ECFF40FC8E&displaylang=en

7. Place Dotnetfx.exe in the same directory as your MSI and the Bootstrapper sample files. These four files (Setup.exe, Setup.ini, Dotnetfx.exe, and your MSI file) constitute your new installation package

8. Before copying these files to the target machine, you need to make some changes to Setup.ini. Open Setup.ini in a notepad, and change the following lines.


Msi=FxCopSourceSetup.msi should be changed to Msi=NameofMSIFile.msi (your MSI).
'FxInstallerPath=c: should be uncommented. For instance, FxInstallerPath=. in case the Dotnetfx.exe is in the same directory as setup.exe. Finally it would look something like below:-

Then copy these onto target machine and run Setup.exe and it will install .Net FRamework 2.0 Beta 2 and webiste can be deployed successfully.

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!