Simplify Deployment with Visual Studio and WiX

Deployment. I bet it’s your favourite part of development right? It’s not? Well it should be, it’s the moment that wonderfully crafted piece of genius you spent the last 6 months slaving over finally gets released into the wild. Cue rapturous applause from the crowd of adoring fans clustered around your desk and a fat bonus from the boss. But unfortunately it never seems to go that way; instead you pass the built code to the server guys along with a list of instructions which spell out step by step exactly what needs to be done. And they don’t follow it. You hit the homepage only to be greeted by a red screen of death. The crowd wanders off looking for a new hero and the boss gets himself a nice new solid gold mug. It doesn’t have to be like that though; with a little bit of work you can take complete control of your deployment process and make the server boys happy at the same time - I'll show you how.