About XNA Game Studio (and Visual Studio 2008)...?

Question

Hi there, I already have BlitzBasic 3D and I would like to try this new thing called XNA Game Studio 3.0 [It's all free, heh,heh,...]

I realize that some of the prerequisites for XNA 3.0 include MS Visual Studio 2008 as well these things called MS .NET FrameWorks 2.0 & 3.5, and some Vista service packs whose name's I can't remember.

[ Gee, they make you install a lot, ... just to make XNA work! ]

If I eventually succeed and make some finished game program (EXE) and then share this finished program with others, do all these other people also have to have all these fancy prerequisites and service packs already installed on their computers as well in order for them to

run my program?

Or, will my stand-alone program be good enough and ready to run

"as is" ?

Answer 1

Most likely the "as is" will not be good enough. You will have to make an install. I have not done this personally with XNA but with Windows Forms Applications.

You need to add a setup. In the "Solution Explorer", left click on the solution and go Add->New Project. Then go Other Project Tyes -> Setup and Deployment-> Setup Wizard. Then follow the prompts, choose "Primary output for application_name" on the 3rd step.  Simply build the setup then give just the msi created out to others.

Hope this works.

PS. This will also install the "fancy prerequisites" by complying them into the setup