🚀 go-pugleaf

Sorry about the multiple posts...not sure how that happened. Spam is
definitely not the intention here! About your question...thanks for
bringing it up, its a very good one.

ClickOnce is not an installation technology. It is a sand-boxed
execution environment for rich clients built on the .NET platform. You
cannot freely install files, settings, shortcuts using ClickOnce - it
will instead decide what to create, and where to put it. Moreover,
ClickOnce requires .NET 2.0 to be already installed beforehand.

You will need a real installer if you want to:
1) Install .NET 2.0 itself
2) Install any type of application other than that which ClickOnce can
handle
3) Show any kind of installation interface, or have any custom install
logic

ClickOnce is great, but its just good for simple WinForms applications
that don't have any dependencies whatsoever.

Of course, you could use the Visual Studio bootstrapper to install your
pre-requisites (such as the framework), but there you're again better
off with InstallAware because:
1) The .NET Framework is compressed up to 1/3rd of its original size
2) You can deliver setup.exe's which download only the missing runtimes
3) And, your main setup.exe's can still include your main application
and be fully functional

InstallAware is based on Windows Installer technology - so you know
your setups are compliant with the latest corporate deployment
standards developed by Microsoft. Windows Installer is the primary
installation technology used and developed by Microsoft, with ClickOnce
having a more limited range of use (don't get me wrong, its great too).