How to show application version in VS.NET Deployment Project?

Question

I have set up a Deployment Project for my application. The problem is that I want to show application version (eg. MyApplication 1.2.3.1) during installation so the user can see the version before installing.

The only way I can think of is to modify the WelcomeText in Welcome dialog. Is there an easier or more elegant way to achieve this?

Answer 1

You should be able to use the Windows Installer ProductVersion property for this. If you change the Welcome dialog's WelcomeText property to:

The installer will guide you through the steps required to install [ProductName] [ProductVersion] on your computer.

Then you can change the Deployment Project's Version property and have the value automatically displayed. Any string-based property can do this; just use the [] syntax to have the value inserted.

For other properties that are provided out of the box, see the Windows Installer Property Reference

Answer 2

You can get the version number that is set in the executing AssemblyInfo.cs using this code

System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString()

Similarly if you want to get the version number for a specific assembly you can use

System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly([type in my assembly]).GetName().Version.ToString()

You could then change the welcome text automatically at runtime.