Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Bootstrapper Plug-In

"A plug-in for creating deployment projects in Microsoft® Visual Studio® .NET 2003 that contain the .NET Framework version 1.1 and/or Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) version 2.7.


Overview

The Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Bootstrapper Plug-In allows you to easily create an installer that redistributes the .NET Framework 1.1 and/or MDAC 2.7 with your application.

In order for a .NET Framework application to run on a given computer, it must have the .NET Framework installed. Any .NET Framework application that uses ADO.NET to connect to databases requires MDAC 2.7. Many computers already have these components installed; however, to ensure an application will run, these components should be redistributed with your application.

The Visual Studio .NET 2003 Bootstrapper integrates with Visual Studio .NET setup and deployment projects. With it you can create a single installer that automatically detects whether those prerequisites are on the target computer and installs them if needed. If any of the components requires the computer to restart, the installer will automatically resume afterward. Users of the application only need to run a single setup program to install the prerequisites and the application.

To learn more about the Visual Studio .NET 2003 Bootstrapper, review the Visual Studio .NET 2003 article in the .NET Framework 1.1 Deployment Guide. "