1 - Change the name of the program folder for the application.

Select the Application Folder object, right-click, and select Properties Window. In the DefaultLocation property, notice that the default value is:

[ProgramFilesFolder][Manufacturer]\[ProductName]

[Manufacturer]\[ProductName] are taken from the Assembly metadata. In my case, [Manufacturer] is Kinesava Technology Associates and [ProductName] is FourElements. This adds (or just 'uses' if it's already there) a folder in Program Files and another one underneath it. You can change this to whatever you want. For example, I could change it to:

C:\About Visual Basic\Ari Baby Elements

... and this would be used as the target for the application setup instead.

Add a Readme.txt file to install folder.

To do this, you first have to have a Readme.txt file. I created a simple one and saved it. Then we start with the same options as changing the install folder. Select the Application Folder object. Then right-click, and select Add > File .... Select the Readme.txt file to include and click "Open".

3 - Add custom icon for the application.

Creating icons is a whole subject by itself. Microsoft has an excellent article about it: Creating Windows XP Icons.

Adding an icon, however, doesn't directly involve the setup project. An icon can be added to the application Assembly using the Properties page for the application (in our case, the FourElements project). Select the Application tab and browse to an icon file to use for your project.

4 - Add a shortcut to the application into the Windows Programs Menu.

Adding a shortcut again uses the File System designer. But the broad flexibility of Setup programs doesn't make it easy for a "first timer" to get this right. It's easy to create a shortcut to the wrong thing. If you have this problem, just delete it and try it again paying special attention to exactly what the shortcut links to.

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To add a shortcut to the application in the Program Files menu, select User's Programs Menu (this is where the link will be created), then right-click the pane to the right and select Create New Shortcut. To find the target of the link, select the Applications Folder by double-clicking or selecting from the dropdown menu. Now select the Primary Output and click OK. This should add the shortcut to the Start button All Programs menu but the default name probably isn't what you want. You can simply enter a different name her to rename it to something more user friendly.

If you want to add the shortcut into a program group, just right click the User's Programs Menu and select Add > Folder. Name the new folder using the same name as the program group you want to use. In my case, I used the group name Kinesava Technology Associates.

This folder will normally be the same name as the DefaultLocation property of the Application Folder object in the File System Editor. But that property allows you to use setup the setup variable names: [ProgramFilesFolder][Manufacturer]\[ProductName]. I can't find a way to use these same variables to name a grouped folder in the User's Program Menu. If someone out there knows how to do that, let me know and I'll update this article.

5 - Add subfolder to the application folder and install files into it.

To add a subdirectory for the graphics files used in the application, right click the Application Folder object again and Select Add > Folder. Name the new folder anything you like. I used the name Element Icons. Then add the four icon files into this folder by right-clicking the new Element Icons folder and selecting Add > File ... Browse to the icon files, select all four, and click Open.

These icon files aren't strictly necessary for our system since they're included in the Assembly for the application as resources. I added them into the setup to show how files like this can be included in the setup.