| title | Visual Studio Installer Projects and .NET | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| description | Explore how to use the Visual Studio Installer Projects Extension to package .NET Core 3.1 or .NET 5 and later version applications for Microsoft Installer (MSI). | |||
| titleSuffix | ||||
| ms.date | 11/19/2025 | |||
| ms.topic | how-to | |||
| helpviewer_keywords |
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| author | MSLukeWest | |||
| ms.author | lukewest | |||
| ms.manager | MSLukeWest | |||
| monikerRange | >= vs-2022 |
Packaging applications as an MSI is often accomplished using the Visual Studio Installer Projects Extension.
This article applies to apps targeting .NET, that is .NET Core 3.1 and .NET 5 or later versions, not .NET Framework.
You can download the extension here:
::: moniker range=">= vs-2022" Visual Studio Installer Projects ::: moniker-end
.NET projects have two different models for publishing.
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Framework-dependent deployments
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Self-contained applications include the runtime.
To learn more about these deployment strategies, see .NET application publishing overview.
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From Visual Studio, choose Extensions > Manage Extensions, and search for "Visual Studio Installer Projects". Or, download the extension directly from the Marketplace.
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From the Start window, choose Create a new project, and then type "setup" in the search box. Choose a Setup project, and follow instructions.
For a detailed example showing how to create and build a Setup project, see Walkthrough: Deploying a Windows-based Application.
For general information on Setup projects (*.vsproj), see Setup and Deployment projects.
For information on deployment properties, see Deployment properties.
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To get the correct output for .NET projects, select Publish Items instead of Primary Output in the Add Project Output Group dialog box. To open this dialog, select Add > Project Output... from the Setup project's context menu.
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To create a self-contained installer, set the PublishProfilePath property on the Publish Items node in the Setup project, using the relative path of a publish profile with the correct properties set.
:::moniker range="visualstudio"
:::image type="content" source="../deployment/media/visualstudio/installer-projects-net-core-publish-profile.png" border="false" alt-text="Screenshot that shows how to set the publish profile on the Publish Items project output item." lightbox="../deployment/media/visualstudio/installer-projects-net-core-publish-profile.png":::
:::moniker-end
::: moniker range="vs-2022" :::image type="content" source="../deployment/media/vs-2022/installer-projects-net-core-publish-profile.png" border="false" alt-text="Screenshot that shows setting the publish profile on the Publish Items project output item." lightbox="../deployment/media/vs-2022/installer-projects-net-core-publish-profile.png"::: ::: moniker-end
Before you can set this property, create a publish profile from the application project by choosing Publish from the application project's context menu in Solution Explorer, and deploy the application to a folder.
Note
This workflow is not supported for ASP.NET Core applications, only Windows Desktop applications.
If you would like your installer to be able to install the necessary runtime for a framework-dependent .NET app, you can do this using prerequisites. From the properties dialog of your installer project, open the Prerequisites... dialog and you'll see the following entries:
:::moniker range="visualstudio"
:::image type="content" source="../deployment/media/visualstudio/installer-projects-net-core-prerequisites.png" border="false" alt-text="Screenshot that shows the Prerequisites dialog.":::
:::moniker-end
::: moniker range="<=vs-2022"
:::moniker-end
The .NET Core Runtime... option should be selected for console applications, .NET Desktop Runtime... should be selected for WPF and WinForms applications.
Note
These items are present starting with the Visual Studio 2019 Update 7 release.