The files are the most important items of your application. The main functionality of an installer is to copy your application's files to the correct places and register the files that need to be registered.

 

VisualSetup has a Windows Explorer like interface, where you will define the files you want setup to install and where the files will be installed. Normally the application's files are installed in a directory chose by the end-user, this directory is named installation directory and it is referred by the system variable %InstallDir%. When your application uses third-party components, or a shared runtime library, you will need to distribute system files with your application's files. The system files are installed in directories of the operational system, like the Windows directory (%WinDir% variable), the System directory (%SysDir% variable), the Fonts directory (%FontsDir% variable) and many other directories referred by system variables.

 

Additionally, when you are distributing a Windows Mobile application, you will need setup program to determine the correct files to be installed in the connected device. VisualSetup allows you assign to each file a setup device and a processor that will be used by setup program to determine the files that need to be installed.