Project Outut Question, Please Help.

Hey everyone how are you doing   I am new to the board, and I am new to programming and Visual Studio .NET 2003.  I am teaching myself both of them starting off using “SAMS Teach Yourself Visual Studio .NET 2003 in 21 Days”.  I am on day four, which is deploying windows forms applications.  The book wants me to create an .MSI package.  Following the instructions I do the following procedures.

1.Create a Windows Form Application and name it InstallerTest
2.Add a deployment template to the solution.  Right-Clicking the InstallerTest solution name in the solution explorer, selecting Add New Project.  In the New Project Dialog box I select Setup and Deployment Projects, and Windows Application.  I name the project InstallerTestSetup.
3.It then asks me to set the properties for the installer project.  Miscellaneous information that is displayed in dialogs during setup.
4.I then am supposed to tell the Installer Project what the Primary Output is to install.

This is where I have my problem.  Following steps 1 – 3 exactly I get to step 4 and I get confused.  The book says the following:

“To add the InstallerTest application to this installer package, right-click on Application Folder on the File System Editor.  From the contextual menu, select Add, Project Output.”
“When you select the Add Project Output option, you’re prompted with the Add Project Output Group dialog.“
“By default, the active project in the solution is the Project drop-down list.  Click the OK button on the Add Project Output Group dialog box to add the InstallerTest application to this setup package.”

So following these simple instructions seems easy enough, however when I read the book and the illustration that it refers me to, there is a big difference in what I see and what is in the book.  Specifically (for those that have the book and are feeling really generous and look it up) Pg. 108 Figure 4.7 does not look like what I get on the screen.  In the book in Figure 4.7 it shows the dialog box which reads

Project     InstallerTest  (this is a drop down menu)

(Then in the open box area it gives the following choices)

Primary Output
Localized Resources
Content Files
Source Files

(then in the next slot it’s a drop down menu in which it says)

Active

Now when I go to that same window it all looks the same except for the four choices in the middle.  Instead of those four I only get Built Outputs.  As I understand it, I need to put the Primary Output  as the new project, but I don’t have that option.  What am I doing wrong.  I understand this is a long post, but thank you very much for any and all help that you can give me.  I really appreciate it.

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Project Outut Question, Please Help.

MON205
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Chris Walters
I don't have a specific answer to your question (I haven't read the book, but my results are similar to what you describe as being shown in the book).

The only thing I can think of is that you may be using a different edition than what is used in the book. Visual Studio .NET 2003 comes in Academic, Proffesional, Enterprise Developer, and Enterprise Architect flavors, as well as the individual standard editions. The book will most likely state in the introduction which version it has been written with.

The only encouragement I can offer is that, while convenient, it is not a requirement to use that particualr method to add files to a setup project. You can also just add the files you need directly, without VS.NET managing it for you.
William Vaughn
You should be able to just browse to the individual files and add them to the Application Folder, and you may only have one file. your EXE. It's not as convenient as Project Output because it doesn't take account of Debug vs Release builds.
Project Outut Question, Please Help.

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