ASP.NET Deployment...

[Terry Mulvany]

Hello group,
Curious as to how you all have chosen to deploy/publish your asp.net apps.
Currently though we have a local dev environment, then we stage to a QA
server then we publish/deploy.
In previous jobs I've always used straight xcopy to publish to production
(usually via the Copy Project option in VS.Net). The way I understand it,
your choices are you can xcopy or use an MSI. What are the benefits of each
and if there is no need to register anything (i.e. activex components, etc.)
why would an MSI ever be used?

Thanks Group.

-Terry

 

[Jeff Sheldon]

Terry,

An MSI would be used because it allows the developer to specify more
than just the files, for instance, the developer can specify specific IIS
settings in there.
Where I'm at currently, we'd have to fill out forms and such to install
MSI's on the servers, so we just use copy and paste. But instead of xcopy
and VS.NET copy we use a file diff program (BeyondCompare) to ensure time
stamps etc.

-Jeff

 

[The Developer]

Terry,
By using MSI of installation of your web application, you give end-user (or
server administrator) a clean way to install/un-install your web application
to/from the web server. Also, MSI does not blindly copy files to the virtual
directory (as VS.NET "Copy Project" option does) but it only copies files
that has been changed since last installation.