Make MSDeploy (Visual Studio) not delete App_Data folder but delete everything else

Question

I\'m using Visual Studio\'s Publish button to deploy my website, and want a different App_Data folder on the server. There\'s a checkbox for Leave extra f

Answer 1

This isn't ideal since you may be copying a lot of files doing this (I'm not), but here's my solution for backing up a folder. Adapted to move the folder to the location from which it will be published, during the publish process. Put this in your pubxml file:

...

   
     
   
   

And if you just want to do any number of specific known files, do one Copy block per file: