Procedure to create a Setup file:

1. Open an existing Windows form project solution to create a setup file.

2. Right-click on solution and in the context menu click Add, then New Project. After
that you can see a new project window, in that right side you can select Other
Project Types in installed Templates, then select as shown below.

3. Now you can see one project in the same solution as setup1. You can see the
properties for this project and can change these properties as you wish
like Author, Manufacture, etc. as in the following figure:
4. Now the real part begins, here I am going to show you how you can import your
project files to setup file, for that right-click on this setup1 project and in the context
menu select Add, then click Project Output. After that, you can see a pop-up, from
this pop up select required items, mainly Primary output and Localized
resources (marked in a red square which I have selected).

After adding these items as in above figure you will get the screen as below,

• Here you can see there are three folders on the left side tab called File System,
 Application Folder

This is your Destination folder where you're going to install or copy the entire
application, so here you can add all your project files

User’s Desktop

This folder is your desktop, here you can put shortcut of an application file.

User’s Programs Menu:

This folder is your start menu context folder, here also you can put a shortcut of the
application file, help file or any documents, etc.

• Here on the right side under Setup1 project tree and in inside application folder
you can see item name starts with Primary output from <ProjName>, it is the
output of your project i.e., it is going to be your main .exe file

• And you can also see all your external .dll files required for your project to run.

5. Now let’s see how to add extra files and folders in these three right side folders,

Firstly, let’s see in the Application Folder as shown below. Right-click on this folder
and in the context menu select Add, then click File (What do you want)

• Here, I am going to add two files i.e., one Icon file and Database file, here you
can also add documents and whatever you want.

After adding files to Application Folder

• Next we can add a shortcut of the application file to User’s Desktop, for this
select User’s Desktop folder. On the right side, you can see blank space having
heading Name and Type. In that, you can right-click and then in the context menu
select Create New Shortcut as shown below.

• Then you will get one pop up box like below, in that select Primary output From
<ProjName>, then click OK.
• Now you can see one shortcut file added on that blank space, here you can
change the name of shortcut and can give an icon for this shortcut as in the
following figure:

• Next you can add a shortcut file to the User’s Program Menu folder as I did
in User’s Desktop folder and if you want you can add some document as well in
this folder. This folder will come under your Start menu ->All programs folder, so if
you want more files to be added then first add one folder into this User’s
Programs Menu folder as shown below, then add whatever files you want.
6. Now let’s see how you can manage prerequisites, which is required. Run your
application like .NET framework 3.0 or 4.0, VS report viewer, and other
prerequisites, for this right-click on setup1 in Solution Explorer and select
Properties. After that you can see one pop up there you can select the
prerequisites button then select what all prerequisites needed for your application
to run Select any of the 3 radio buttons (select 1st one Default).

7. Now you can design your setup.exe file as in the following figure:
 a. You can give a banner image

b. You can change the Copyright Warning message, welcome text, etc.

8. Now the time to build setup file, for this right-click on Setup1 in Solution
Explorer and select Build, That’s it.

After build success, you can see in your project folder one extra folder created.
Inside the Debug folder, you can see your setup file as shown below.