Deploying WPF Apps with Click-Once in Visual C# Express

In this article, we will see how to create a setup file and deploy WPF applications in Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express.

Introduction to Click-Once Deployment

Click-Once enables Web-style application deployment for non-web applications. Applications are published to and deployed from web or file servers. Although Click Once does not support the full range of client features that applications installed by the Windows Installer do, it does support a subset that includes the following.

• Integration with the Start menu and Programs Control Panel.
• Versioning, rollback, and uninstallation.
• Online install mode, which always launches an application from the deployment location.
• Automatic updating when new versions are released.
• Registration of file extensions.

Before proceeding with the deployment, ensure that your application has been built properly and ready for deployment. This article explains with respect to Game in a WPF. I have already developed a game application that is ready for deployment and the game name is Mr. Gunner. I will explain step-by-step with a snapshot as follows.

Step 1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project name and select "Properties" as shown in the following snapshot.

Step 2. After clicking on Properties a Publishing Window will open and it has various options, such as Application, Built, Security, Publish, and so on. as you can see in the following snapshot.

Step 3. To set an icon for your application, browse for a suitable icon for your application. To set the icon, click on the application and browse the icon (the icon should be a .ico file), if you don't want to set an icon for the application then it will be deployed with a default icon in your application as I highlighted with red circles in the following snapshot.

In the preceding snapshot, I chose a .ico file for my application as you can see in the highlighted red circle.

Step 4. Then click on "Publish". Here select the publishing location nothing but browse the folder where you want to keep the setup file and other application files and after selecting the publish location then click on the "Publish Wizard" to proceed as shown in the highlighted red circles.

Step 5. After clicking "Publish" a wizard window will open, then click on the "Next" button as shown in the following snapshot.

Step 6. After selecting CD-ROM or DVD then click "Next" to proceed as shown in the following snapshot.

Step 7. After selecting "Updates" Click "Next" to proceed to the final step as shown in the following snapshot.

Step 8. Now, finally, click on the "Finish" button to complete the Publish Wizard as shown in the following snapshot.

After clicking the "Finish" button, a setup file will be created in the selecting folder as shown in the following snapshot.

Finally, a setup file has been created on the selected folder. Now you can install the application on your system by clicking on the setup file. Have fun working with the installed application.

Summary

In this article, I have shown how to create a setup file and deploy a WPF application using Click-Once deployment technology in the Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express Edition. If you have any queries regarding this article then please do comment. Thanks for reading my article.