Making the final version for distribution
Once the program has been carefully tested and debugged, you can make an EXE (executable) program that no longer needs Visual Basic in order to
run. In its EXE form the program can be distributed to users and they will be
able to run the program even if they do not have Visual Basic installed on their
computers. They will need, however, to install a other files onto their computer - the files can be downloaded from the internet free of charge.
If you made your program in VB.NET then you can 'build'
an EXE file - the EXE file and all the other files in the
'Bin' folder must be distributed. Also, the users of the EXE file
must have the .NET framework installed - some versions of
Windows include the .NET framework by default, otherwise it can be
downloaded from the Microsoft site.
Even after you have created your EXE file, it is important not to discard the
project in its previous form since the EXE file cannot be edited thus if any
further debugging or modification of the program is to be done it is necessary
to work on the original project and then save it again as a new EXE file that
will replace the old one.
Putting your VB program on the Internet
If you want to make little programs (applets) for the Internet then you are
probably best off not using Visual Basic but instead using Adobe Flash which is
the subject of another tutorial on this site. However, you can also use
Microsoft Web Developer which is a free program that will soon be a part of
my ICT classes.
