The process of creating a setup project for an ASP.NET 2.0 application is slightly different and is described in the corresponding article.

Conceptually, creating a redistributable package for an ASP.NET 1.1 application including UltiDev Cassini consists of the following steps:
- Create a regular, non-web, setup project and add it to the solution that has ASP.NET application;
- Add custom actions to the setup project that register the ASP.NET application with Cassini after installation and unregister during uninstallation;
- Replace original Setup.exe bootstrapper generated by Visual Studio .NET 2003 with the bootstrapper provided by UltiDev.

This will create a distribution package that will ensure that the latest version of UltiDev Cassini Web server is deployed and started on the target machine before your application is installed.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The process described in this article generates Setup.exe bootstrapper that requires .NET Framework 1.1 to be installed on the target machine. Running generated Setup.exe on a machine that doesn't have .NET Framework will interrupt installation with an error.

This walkthrough assumes that UltiDev Cassini Web Server for Visual Studio .NET 2003 Developers is installed and that you have an existing solution with an ASP.NET application opened in Visual Studio .NET 2003 IDE. In the end you will have a project closely resembling the sample project we provided for Visual Studio .NET 2003.

- First thing to do is to add a new setup project to your existing ASP.NET web application solution. Please select File | Add Project | New Project menu item and add a new regular Setup project to the solution:


- Ensure that your setup is going to be built. For that right-click the solution and select Configuration Manager. There check the "Build" checkbox for your setup project for at least a Release build configuration:

- Add your application files to the setup project.




- Add UltiDevCassiniServerConfiguration.dll to the Setup project. UltiDevCassiniServerConfiguration.dll assembly is a part of UltiDev Cassini package and contains custom installer class that can be invoked from a Setup project to register or un-register an ASP.NET application with UltiDev Cassini. To add UltiDevCassiniServerConfiguration.dll to your Setup project, using Setup project's File System View, create Bin folder under the Application Folder:


Then right-click on Bin folder and select Add | Assembly... In the Open File dialog navigate to UltiDev Cassini folder, which is usually "C:\Program Files\UltiDev\Cassini Web Server for Visual Studio .NET 2003 Developers"  (in older versions it could be "C:\Program Files\UltiDev\Cassini Web Server for ASP.NET 1.1")

... and pick the UltiDevCassiniServerConfiguration.dll.

UltiDevCassiniServerConfiguration.dll contains routines that register and unregister ASP.NET applications with UltiDev Cassini. After you have added UltiDevCassiniServerConfiguration.dll, your Setup project will look like this:

Start with creating Install, Rollback and Uninstall custom actions in the Setup project pointing to the UltiDevCassiniServerConfiguration.dll you've just added. To do that switch to the Custom Actions View of the Setup project and right-click on Install, Rollback and Uninstall actions and select Add Custom Action menu.  In the Select Item dialog navigate to the Application Folder\Bin folder and select UltiDevCassiniServerConfiguration.dll for each custom action:



The result will look like this:


At this point you hooked up Cassini's installer class to setup project's custom installer actions. Now you just need to pass application's registration information to the Cassini Configuration module. "Install" action requires several parameters, while Rollback and Uninstall steps require only one parameter - application ID. Application ID should be a unique GUID. You can either generate a new GUID using MS Guidegen.exe utility, or better, just reuse an UpgradeCode of your setup project. To get UpgradeCode value of your setup project, bring up Setup project's properties:

... and copy & paste the GUID value in the Notepad for the use further in this walkthrough.

To specify application ID for Rollback action, select UltiDevCassiniServerConfiguration.dll under Rollback bin and set CustomActionData property value to /AppID="<your application ID>":


Then repeat the same for the Uninstall action. CustomActionData values for Rollback and Uninstall steps should be identical.

"Install" action has following parameters passed via CustomActionData property:

Parameter		Meaning	Example
/AppID	Required	Application ID	/AppID="{61526CD1-BBBE-4511-902D-EFE4A1E2845F}"
/AppLocation	Required	Physical location of the application. Should always be set to "[TARGETDIR]\".	/AppLocation="[TARGETDIR]\"
/AppName	Optional	Application Name	/AppName="Test Cassini 2.0 Setup App"
/AppDescription	Optional	Application Description	/AppDescription="some useful text"
/AppPort	Optional	Application Port	/AppPort="80"
Don't specify the port explicitly if possible! Cassini Explorer can redirect user's browser to the correct application URL by application ID if you point the browser to http://<machinename>:7756/GoToApplication.aspx?AppID=<your application ID>. Web service clients can too call Cassini Explorer web service at http://<machinename>:7756/CassiniConfigurationService.asmx to get your application's URL.
/AppDefaultDoc	Optional if default document is Default.aspx or Index.htm	Default application document	/AppDefaultDoc="WebForm1.aspx"
/AppKeepRunning	Optional	Flag telling if application should always be kept in memory for quick first-page response. Default value is true.	/AppKeepRunning="false"

Here's the example of the Install action's CustomActionData value:

After installation is complete, bring up Cassini Explorer from the Programs | UltiDev program group and ensure your application is registered with Cassini and is working. Uninstall the application and refresh the Cassini Explorer to see the application gone. When you ship your setup package to users, don't forget to include both Setup.exe and MSI files because both have an important role in the installation: Setup.exe installs Cassini, and MSI installs your ASP.NET application.

Uninstalling the ASP.NET application will not cause UltiDev Cassini to be uninstalled automatically. Your application SHOULD NOT attempt to uninstall UltiDev Cassini components, because other installed applications may be dependent on Cassini presence.

Here's the what you need to do:
- Right-click the solution root item in the solution tree and select Add | New Project.
- In the dialog select Class Library as project type and give the project name !BuildProject (the '!' in the name will make it the first project in the solution):

... and hit OK button.

- Remove all the default files from the !BuildProject as they are not necessary.
- Make !BuildProject dependent on the setup project in the solution so that post-build steps would execute after setup project was already built. To do that, right-click the solution root and click Project Dependencies item. In the dialog window that popped up, select !BuildProject from Projects dropdown and check the setup project in the Depends On list.

... click OK.

- Define !BuildProject's post-build event so that it will copy Cassini's Setup.exe file over to the setup project's output folder. To do that bring up properties of the !BuildProject and put the following into the Post-build Event Command Line:

At this point you can test the installation by running Setup.exe.

- If you want to add a Programs menu shortcut to your application, please do the following.
Add an Html Page file to your ASP.NET application project and call it LocalStart.htm.


Open the file in text editor and replace its content with the following:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
<meta http-equiv="refresh"
            content="0;url=http://localhost:7756/GoToApplication.aspx?AppID=87C97D89-B993-411D-A0EF-782191F1DBDD"/>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

Replace highlighted GUID with your application's actual ID.

LocalStart.htm page contains "meta" tag that points browser to GoToApplication.aspx page of the UltiDev Cassini Explorer, and passes your application ID as a parameter. Cassini Explorer will find port assigned to your application and will redirect the browser to it. This will always correctly invoke your application even though the application will get different ports assigned to it on different machines at the registration time.
 
Now to work around some kinks of the setup project, add the LocalStart.htm file to your setup project’s Application Folder:



After that, right-click the LocalStart.htm file in the right pane of the File System window of the Setup Project and click Create Shortcut menu item.


Rename the shortcut to reflect the name of your application.


Drag & Drop the shortcut to the User’s Programs Menu.


Build the solution and install your application. After the installation you should see the shortcut in the Programs menu.