Visual Basic Concepts
Application Deployment with the Wizard
Application deployment is the act of moving your packaged application to either the distribution media you have chosen or to a Web site from which it can be downloaded. There are two ways you can deploy your Visual Basic application:
You can use the Deployment portion of the Package and Deployment Wizard to deploy your application to floppy disks, a local or network drive, or to a Web site.
You can manually copy files to disks or shares, or you can manually publish files to the appropriate Web location.
The Package and Deployment Wizard provides shortcuts and automatically performs some of the same tasks you would have to perform if you manually deployed your application.
Overall Steps in the Deployment Process
Whether you deploy your packages with the Package and Deployment Wizard by hand, there are certain steps that must be taken.
Create a package for deployment. This can be either a single .cab file or a series of .cab files, depending on how you plan to distribute the application.
Identify the package you want to deploy. You can choose any valid package for the selected project.
Choose a deployment method. You can deploy your application to the Internet, to floppy disks, or to a directory on a local or network drive.
Choose the files to deploy. If you are deploying to the Internet, you can add and remove files from the list of files to be deployed.
Determine the destination for deployed files. For Internet deployment, this involves specifying a Web site to which the package should be deployed. For directory deployment, this means indicating the drive location to which the package should be deployed. For floppy disk deployment, this means choosing the appropriate floppy drive.
Deploy your package. If you are using the Package and Deployment Wizard, the wizard handles this process for you. If not, you must copy the files to the appropriate locations on your shared or local drive, or publish your files to the Web.