How to create SFX self executing or Bootstrapper setup with .NET

Question

How to build the setup similar to microsoft's dotnet 3.5 which is SFX self executing setup.

So which will have the company information, and version info, etc of the project's setup.exe into the final sfx file.

Also this question on SO is suggests using IExpress but the file information is not what my project is having in setup.exe.

If there is some in-built solution in .NET Framework, I would like to use that first.

Also you can suggest other approach if creating self-executing SFX setup is not possible in .NET Framework.

Main purpose is having self-executing SFX file with file information defined by me only.

Thanks

Answer 1

This is done with a custom EXE bootstrapper. There is no built-in support for it.

Most commercial setup authoring tools offer this feature even in their most basic versions. If you don't want a different setup authoring tool, you will need to write the bootstrapper yourself or use something like IExpress.