Create Setup/MSI installer in Visual Studio 2017

Question

I have written an outlook add-in VSTO in Visual Studio Pro 2017 (VB.NET). I have published it which creates a setup.exe which is OK but I would like to create a proper installer that copies the files locally and can be run silently etc.

How do I go about doing this? When I go to create new project there is no installer project option.

Answer 1

You need to install this extension to Visual Studio 2017/2019 in order to get access to the Installer Projects.

According to the page:

This extension provides the same functionality that currently exists in Visual Studio 2015 for Visual Studio Installer projects. To use this extension, you can either open the Extensions and Updates dialog, select the online node, and search for "Visual Studio Installer Projects Extension," or you can download directly from this page.

Once you have finished installing the extension and restarted Visual Studio, you will be able to open existing Visual Studio Installer projects, or create new ones.

Answer 2

Other answers posted here for this question did not work for me using the latest Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise edition (as of 2018-09-18).

Instead, I used this method:

1. Close all but one instance of Visual Studio.
2. In the running instance, access the menu Tools->Extensions and Updates.
3. In that dialog, choose Online->Visual Studio Marketplace->Tools->Setup & Deployment.
4. From the list that appears, select Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Installer Projects.

Once installed, close and restart Visual Studio. Go to File->New Project and search for the word Installer. You'll know you have the correct templates installed if you see a list that looks something like this: