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How can I distribute an app to a group for testing?

Berni McCoy EXPERT RESPONSE FROM: Berni McCoy

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QUESTION POSED ON: 14 April 2004
I have written an application in VB.NET that is ready to distribute to my application support group for testing. How do I go about accomplishing this?

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Much of the answer depends on what kind of application you are distributing. If it's self-contained and is intended for private deployment (not going in the Global Assembly Cache), then you can just provide a link to the testing group on a file share to have them copy it locally and run it.

Of course, your application may not be so simple to install and may depend on the existence of registry values, environment variables, file locations, etc. If so, I'd write an installer for it. If it's simple, I'd use the Microsoft Installer (MSI) to generate an installer for it. If it has more complex requirements (depends on third-party components, requires proper licensing, complex file, registry or environment configurations), then I would seriously consider purchasing a tool to help with writing the installer. The one thing to keep in mind is that the deployment of the application is as much a part of the application as any other feature, so it needs to be tested as well. Make sure that whatever the testers are going to do is what a customer would do, and installing it is one of those pesky things users can get into trouble doing.


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Business Issues of .NET Development
Is there a way around making each domain user a member of the debugger group?
What is a 'delay sign'?
How can I display an active image from webcam using Visual C++ code?
Is it possible to use or convert our existing VB programs to JSP pages?
Is it possible to send input to a non-Microsoft program?
What is the major difference between VB6.0 and the VB.NET?
How can I sort a survey by answer?
How can an ASP.NET Web app collect info and send it to another site via SSL using an HTTPS POST?
ColdFusion vs. VS.NET
Are additional licenses or permissions needed to sell software developed using VS.NET?

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