Visual Studio 2015 C＃将应用程序部署到桌面

Question

I have a C# application. It has multiple forms and multiple classes. I've been looking for ages on how to deploy my application and keep running into issues.

I've tried:

ClickOnce

Right click on my solution -> Publish

This is the data I've entered:

Specify the location to publish this application:

    C:\Users\$USER\Desktop

How will users install the application? 

Here I just want to be able to get an installation file that will install the app and all the assets. This is purely for testing, but I just want to be able to send a friend the .exe install via email (or some other means) so they can play around with it. I have not gotten any of these options to work thus can't continue.

File -> New Project -> Other Project Types -> Visual Studio Installer -> Setup Project

I right click on Application folder -> add -> Project Output

When doing this, it tells me I need to close my current solution (my application) and if I want to save. It looks like other people are able to get this project output project to show in the solution explorer along with their main application, but I can't seem to do that.

The entire Add Project Output Group is empty, including both dropdowns.

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These are the two methods I've seen that seem to be the easiest, but I can't even seem to get them to work :s

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I do also have my own website, and eventually I'd like users to install the application from a page on the website. If easier, I could set that up instead of dealing with just getting an install file, but I haven't looked into it as I assumed just getting this install file on my computer would be simpler.

Any help with this would be highly appreciated as I'm lost as of now.

Answer 1

So when I share my work with my a friend to review, what i generally do is send him them the .exe located in bin\\Debug\\app.publish\\<name>.exe folder inside the project folder. Take care to place all the .dll , ie class libraries that you have written into that folder, zip it, and share! Your friend should be able to extract and run.