proper way to deploy a web app to IIS?

[Flip]

What is the proper/suggested/best way to deploy a webapp to a Win2K3 Server
running IIS6?

I am coming from the j2ee world (easy on the flames please, I'm moving to
..NET remember :>), and I've created a solution that has my four web apps
contained in their own projects (correct me if that's not the proper way,
but that's an easy way to manage webapps in JBuilder), and I was hoping I
could create another project (?) to copy the files over to IIS. Is this the
right way?

I would like to have one button (or as few as possible :>) to compile and
deploy the webapps to the server. How do you people do this in production
systems?

I know I can co the xcopy way, but now I have a boat load of what I think
are VisualStudio files sitting on my IIS box in the webapp that I don't
necessarily like having there (only cause I know they don't belong there).
Do you deploy a web app by bundling everything up into a .cab file? Much
like the .jar file in j2ee?

Any help, webpages, references would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[David Kyle]

This is fairly simple if you are using VS.NET. Go to your 'Project' menu ->
'Copy Project...'. From there you can directly copy either all your files
or just the files that you need to run the program.

Hope this helps you. Cheers!

David Kyle
www.chloemag.com

 

[jongalloway]

If VS.NET's copy project doesn't work for you, take a look at
UnleashIt, a free program from Matt Hawley:
http://www.eworldui.net/unleashit/
- Jon
http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway

 

[Flip]

If VS.NET's copy project doesn't work for you, take a look at

Thank you both David and Jon. I'll try the Copy Project tonight! :>

Oh ya, I'm sorry, yes, I am using VS.NET, sorry for that oversight. I just
assumed everyone used VS.NET, but I know that assumption is not 100%
correct.

Thanks again.

 

[Flip]

This is fairly simple if you are using VS.NET. Go to your 'Project'
menu ->

'Copy Project...'. From there you can directly copy either all your files

I tried this last night and after a few changes (adding FPSvrExt to the
websites), and cleaning up the "crap" I copied over the previous time, I was
good to go. I found one caveat, if you are reading this and are new to this
deployment, PDFs are not part of the default domain of files to copy over.
You have to manually select them and set them to CONTENT for their build
action. No biggie, just a few minutes to find/fix.

Thank you again David and Jon, this tip works great! :>

Hope this helps you. Cheers!

Very cleanly! Thank you!