How to make Visual Studio Setup Project to require but not include a given project output?

Question

When I build my Setup Project another given project (CustomActions.vsproj) isn't built. It happens that the post build script needs that CustomActions.vsproj's binaries. I could build it manually, but I want to automate this so when another developer download the solution from the repository he won't have to know this trick.

I could automate this by including the CustomActions.vsproj's output in the setup. But I don't want to use this solution because this output shouldn't be included in the MSI.

Answer 1

When I added CustomActions.vsproj's output I could remove it from the Files section and keep it in the build process. This was exactly what I needed.

Answer 2

In VS 2010 in the solution navigator there is a small icon called "Launch Conditions editor". There you can search on the target machine for resources and create "Launch conditions" which binds your wanted message texts ("The file xx was not found...") against the property chosen for the resources.