What's the best way to build an MSI? [closed]

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I have been building MSI's from Visual Studio Standard/Professional for many years, and have had endless issues with not the first iteration, but future builds. Typically, the assembly manifests don't get updated properly with dependencies when I up the versions of dependencies, or maybe the MSI will have issues packaging the right versions of DLL assemblies. Also, when I rebuild MSI's with multiple projects in the Solution that cross-reference each other, I often get warnings about multiple versions of the same assembly referenced, and often I have to delete and recreate the Setup Project entirely in order to get a good subsequent build. How do others solve this issue? Do you use something besides the Setup and Deployment project template? Do you use WIX?

Answer 1

If you don't mind spending money, InstallShield has always been a top notch installer. I've used it many times and it can be customized a million different ways. Unfortunately, the price is a little salty.

For a free solution, Inno Setup works very well, however, it cannot create MSI's. It can only create .EXE executables.

As Reed suggested, Wix is also a very good option as well!