Tools to create installers or setup programs in Visual Studio 2015

Question

After I built a good WPF application in C# and willing to work with that technology, I knew that my software development tools with Visual Studio Community 2015 RC are not enough without a tool for creating setup programs.

So, I'd tried to install Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Installer Projects but unfortunately, Microsoft Visual Studio Professional which is not free, is required to be able to install that extension!

I've also tried to install the release version of WiX Toolset v3.9 R2 but it's not compatible with Visual Studio 2015.

Answer 1

For those who are preparing to use Visual Studio 2015, here's what I found, the latest builds of WiX v3.10 that can be downloaded from this link, are compatible for Visual Studio 2015 as what WiX toolset replied on their tweets: https://twitter.com/wixtoolset/status/597796279729528833

@5ervant latest builds of WiX v3.10 support @VisualStudio 2015.

However, VS doesn't allow extensions to install in Express SKUs.

The WiX v3.10.0.1519 from this link, is tried and tested!

Answer 2

I encountered a similar issue to the OP; so I'll put my story here in the hope it will help somebody.

At first I attempted to install "Visual Studio 2015 Installer Projects" in the latest version of Visual Studio 2015 Community via the "Extensions and Updates" functionality in VS2015 itself, it seemed to go fine and completed successfully, I restarted VS to no avail, the project templates were nowhere to be found, and old web setup projects weren't recognised grrr...

Had a mosey around google and found lots of people were experiencing similar issues (that's how I came across this SO post)...

I thought hmm... maybe just a dodgy install... but I thought this time I would download it myself via https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/f1cc3f3e-c300-40a7-8797-c509fb8933b9 instead of from within VS2015.... downloaded it, (closed VS), then ran the installer, VS restarted... now when I go to New Project > Installed > Other Project Types > Visual Studio Installer all my old setup templates are available... and now VS2015 recognises my old web setup projects in existing solutions too.

Edit: Forgot to mention that while installing VS2015 i had VS2010 installed.