Starting from Visual Studio 2012, Microsoft dropped the built-in installer that came with Visual Studio, proposing 2 alternatives:
- Install Shield limited version, which offers basic functionality, for the rest you have to pay
- Wix, which is an xml-based installer, built on .NET Framework 2.0
However, I found both these solutions not very good. Wix, while free, adds an extra dependency on .net 2.0. So, your final user needs to have .net 2.0 un order to be able to install your product, and another .net version, in order to run your app. I find this as to be major constraint.
The solution? Inno Setup
Searching around the internet, I found the best alternative: Inno Setup.
It has unicode & multilanguage support, and comes with an IDE which lets you create the package from simple clicks, without having to know the API it relies on.
For more advanced usages, it also supports Pascal scripting.
I already ported a couple of projects to Inno Setup, and could not be happier with it!