I'm creating an installer for a website.

The only thing I require as input from the user (in Custom Actions) is settings for the web.config.

My initial approach was to create a Deployment project from my web project ans use this as input to the Setup project.

Couldn't I use a Web Setup project instead of a Web Deployment + Setup project to do the same thing?

Issues I have found with the Web Deployment is that I cannot edit it's contents at installation time, I'm taking user input at installation time to write to the web.config that the Installer uses but of course this file is embedded in the Web Deployment projects output (I don't think this can be edited once the Web Deployment project has been compiled, correct me if I'm wrong please!!!!!)

Hi,

You can use a Web Deployment Project with a Web Setup Project. Create custom install actions in the Setup project and use the primary output of Web Deployment project. Since the custom actions will fire after the project has been physically deployed, there is no case of "modifying embedded" file as you will modify the file which is present in the user's installation directory.

Hope this helps,

Vivek

I see, so the installation functionality works on the already installed website files, but is this not dictated by the developer pointing the functionality at either the Installers OnBeforeInstall, Install ot OnAfterInstall method overrides?

I tried using the web.config section substitution found in the Web Deployment project properties, it is of course a compile time substitution so of no use in my case, I require the substitution of the configuration section to be done at install time after the user has supplied input.

Unfortunately the OnBeforeInstall, Install  OnAfterInstall method overrides are of no practical use as such, as you must have also noticed that by the time *any* custom action fires, the installer will have installed all files in the installation directory.

I had myself used custom actions on many projects and it worked fine since the web.config was already present in the installed directory which I just had to modify using user supplied values.

HTH,

Vivek

that's interesting. that would make it easier alright, as I said I foolishly was trying the .config section substution which is of no use to me as it's compile time, instead I can try the iis web.config file re-write.

So if weren't interested in patching websites or in what file format the website had in the installer why would you choose the Web Deployment + Setup over WebSetup?
 

BTW here's an interesting page I found yesterday, it's related to this topic

http://aspalliance.com/826_CodeSnip_Modifying_Webconfig_file_during_installation

>So if weren't interested in patching websites or in what file format the website had in the installer why would you choose the Web Deployment + Setup over WebSetup?

There are many advantages of using a Web Deployment Project. See this link for details:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2005/11/06/429723.aspx

Hope this helps,

Vivek

Thanks Vivek, that was the first resourse I found on Web Deployment project. Great article alright.

Cheers.

LP.