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Visual Basic Concepts

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Creating Distribution Media

There are several ways you can distribute your application — on floppy or compact discs, over a network, or on a Web site. As part of the deployment process, you must copy your packaged files onto the distribution media you plan to use.

Note   If you package and deploy your files using the Package and Deployment Wizard, these steps are not necessary because the wizard will create your disks, network location, or Internet component download distribution media for you automatically.

You can use any of the following methods when you manually create distribution media:

  • If you plan to distribute on floppies, you must copy files onto one or more disks in a specific order. You must place the setup.exe and Setup.lst files onto the first disk, followed by all the files in the Bootstrap Files section of your project's Setup.lst file, then place other .cab files onto the remaining disks.

  • To distribute on a network share, you simply copy your packaged files to the appropriate location, using Windows Explorer, a command prompt, or some other method.

  • To distribute on CD, you simply copy your files to the CDs.

  • To distribute on the Internet, you copy your Internet package to the appropriate Web site, using the Web Publishing Wizard, available in the ActiveX SDK.

Creating Distribution Disks

It is a good practice to label your distribution disks with the number and name of the disk and instructions for setting up your application. Repeat this installation message on each of the distribution disks. After your disks are labeled, you are ready to copy your files to the distribution disks.

To create distribution disks

  1. Copy the pre-installation files listed below onto the first disk:

    • Setup.exe

    • Setup.lst

  2. Copy the remaining bootstrap .cab files onto the rest of the first disk and any subsequent disks that are needed.

  3. After all bootstrap .cab files are copied, copy the rest of your .cab files onto the necessary disks.

Manually Deploying to a Web Site

If you want to manually deploy your application or component to a site on the Web, you can use the Web Publishing Wizard to deploy your packaged files to the appropriate location. The Web Publishing Wizard is available on the Microsoft Web site at www.microsoft.com, and is also installed with Internet Explorer 4.x.

For More Information   See "Internet Tools and Technologies" in the Internet/Intranet/Extranet Services SDK for more information on the Web Publishing Wizard. See "Creating Distribution Media" earlier in this chapter for information about deciding how to place your files on the disks.