Temporary debugging releases and final applications

Question

I have a quick question regarding debugging and release in VS 2008.

I have an application that I am working on - it is not yet complete, but there is a major part of the functionality. So basically I'm trying to provide a copy of this file to the person who helps with the documentation - just so that they have a game and it feels like I did.

Now the question is how to provide it to them. I was told just to copy the .exe file from the debug / bin folder and put it on USB. But when testing, if I run this .exe somewhere else (outside this folder), it will work. I now understand why this is:

var path = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["PathToUse"]; var files = Directory.GetFiles(path); 

throws a null link, so the App.config file is not used. If I copy this file using .exe, it will work again.

So, actually my question is about the best way to manage this situation. What is the best way to provide a working copy to people, and is there a link to preparing the applications for release - so that everything is packaged together and installed in a hierarchical folder hierarchy?

Answer 1

If you want to be safe, take everything in the debug / bin folder. If you use the drop-down list in VS to change the release and compilation of the project, there will be fewer files in the release / bin folder, because many files related to debugging are not included.

If there are third-party DLL files that you reference, for example, if you downloaded log4net or something like that, you can simply put them in the same folder as exe. This is called parallel deployment and, in my opinion, is the simplest and easiest to test.

You can find the XCOPY deployment to find out more about what you are trying to do.

You can take another step of compressing the bin folder to an archive, such as a zip file, to make it easier for the user to extract them, or you can use a tool like WIX or NSIS to create an installer to extract and copy files.