Visual Studio Installer Concepts
Background information about important concepts related to authoring Microsoft® Windows®installer package (.msi) files with Microsoft® Visual Studio® Installer is presented in the following documents. These central ideas include:
An overview of installer projects and package files.
"Advertising" an application on a user's desktop until the user requests a full installation.
Protecting a user's machine from an unsuccessful installation.
Including shared files and code in installer projects.
Managing application components and files to be installed.
Installation run-time manipulation of the target machine system registry.
Installation and registration of COM objects.
The installation run-time user interface.
See the following sections for detailed information.
| To read about | See |
| Installer projects and how to quickly create them with project templates | Installer Projects |
The two types of package files you can create with Visual Studio Installer:
|
Installer Package Files and Merge Modules |
| Using installer components, files, and folders and relationships among these items and structures in an installer project | Installer Components, Files, and Folders |
| Establishing registry actions that take place as part of your product installation | Registry Actions |
| Creating and manipulating document and MIME types, associations among file extensions and verbs, and COM objects | Installer Associations |
| Establishing and customizing the installation dialogs displayed to your users when they run your installer package (.msi) file | The Installation Run-Time User Interface |