>>>>I guess the best approach might depend on the size of the DB - but I still wouldn't know what to recommend :-}
>>>>
>>>>Best,
>>>>Viv
>>>
>>>I think I'll just stick with 2005 until I get that worked out. I'm a bit surprised I haven't been able to find any walk through posts on this. I find 1 click and web stuff, but not setup project / desktop stuff. So I'm going to keep this simple till I understand it better.
>>>
>>>Here's where I'm at:
>>>
>>>1. Added Dotfuscator command to the release post build event on the exe, Apparently this won't auto run, but it brings up the build window and you can click build. I obfuscate my exe and dlls here.
>>>
>>>2. Added a setup project, set the prerequisites (I need the full 4.0 .net version and SQL2005) (I get a warning about the 2.0 .net prerequisite not being selected, but I think I know how to fix that.)
>>>
>>>3. Select the obfuscated assemblies and add them to the application folder.
>>>
>>>***
>>>
>>>Now I have a setup project that installs fine on the target machine, and has the necessary programs installed.
>>>
>>>What's the best way to deploy the database on the target machine?
>>
>>I'm not the one to ask when it comes to MS SQL - maybe someone else will jump in.
>>But FWIW I'd probably look at shipping the mdfs and attaching them to the server instance - but I've *no* idea whether that's a good option :-{
>>I'd be interested to know how you end up doing this tho.
>>
>>On the general deployment front: we took a close look a 'click-once' deployment a couple of years ago and found some useful abilities but never used it in anger and I've no idea whether it has moved on from there....
>
>I'll fill this in as I work it out. I did find this this morning:
>
>
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/database/Deploy_your_database.aspx>
>But I'm not sure I like the idea of installing from a backup, and for security reasons since this app accesses the users twitter account it probably should be a per user installation.
Only had time for a quick look at the main link.
I'd also be worried about getting the right user/login permissions transferred.
This might be worth some investigation:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb907585.aspxAlso (I just remembered) we looked briefly at RedGate products ('SQL Compare' and 'SQL Data Compare' ) for this. Also pretty clever at updating database structures for newer versions. But not free :-{
