Will Web Deployment Projects still be available in Visual Studio 2012?

Question

It looks like Visual Studio 2012 will not include Visual Studio Setup and Deployment Projects according to MSDN, so I'm currently learning WiX.

Will this loss of functionality extend to Web Deployment Projects?

Answer 1

Web Deployment Projects will NOT be available in VS2012.

Instead we will focus on bringing first class publishing support for Website projects. You can read more details at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2012/08/06/plans-regarding-website-projects-and-web-deployment-projects.aspx. In a nutshell, you will have all the same features that WDP has, but a lot more as well. Also another good thing about this is that we will have one experience for both Web App Project as well as Website Project. So when we make enhancements both project systems get it.

If you had any customizations in your WDP, you should be able to copy/paste those into the new web publish profiles (they are MSBuild as well). Take a look at the blog above and please do let me know if you have any concerns.

Answer 2

I'm note sure if the links from user1069816 are relevant.

Visual Studio 2012 has an unsure inclusion of Web Deployment projects, but you can do something about it.

Vote for their inclusion: http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio/suggestions/2639368-add-web-deployment-projects-to-vs11

Answer 3

It looks like Web Deployment Projects will still exist in Visual Studio 2012 according to:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd394698(v=vs.110)

and

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/aspnetue/archive/2012/06/12/visual-studio-2012-rc-deployment-documentation-published.aspx