Is there a way to separately get the Program Files output for Visual Studio setup projects? -
in visual studio setup project, define program files output (amongst other things of course). is there way output folder directly, i.e. output without building , installing msi windows? what looking similar "file system" publish method web projects. alternatively, "portable install" option in msi (similar instance firefox portable install), or switch in msiexec (i did not find in documentation), or way extract folder structure msi via third-party tool. take @ administrative installation . run postbuild command like: msiexec /a "$(targetpath)" /qn targetdir="$(outdir)\extract" please note didn't test command that's general concept. extract msi directory.