Monday, June 25, 2007

Change MSI name in VS2005

Why can't we change the MSI file name on a VS2005 deployment project? When you create a deployment project with VS2005, the name of the resulting MSI file is the same as the project's name. From this point on, there is no way to change the output file name from the project properties (nor from anywhere else on the IDE, or is there?). Even if you rename the project on the Solution Explorer tree, the resulting MSI file name will not change.

The solution for this is to manually open the .vdproj file and edit it on a regular text editor (Notepad will do). Now search for the "OutputFilename" string under the configuration name of your choice (by default you will see "Debug" and "Release" under the "Configurations" group, but your project may have other configurations), and change the MSI file name. Save the file, open the project in VS2005 and rebuild.

Request for Orcas: can Microsoft please make this property available on the IDE?

EDIT: Someone smarter than me just showed me the way... Thanks, Pedro!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Right click your Setup Project, click "Properties" and there you have it: "Output file name" :)

João Paulo Figueira said...

I'm DUMB!

Unknown said...

How about when you want to assing build numbers to your MSI names dynamically?

InspectionWise said...

You're not dumb. Right-clicking and choosing properties isn't intuitive. I looked and looked, too. Just the fact that your post existed has helped me. Thank you!