title: How to Deploy a Windows Service using Visual Studio 2017 Community
body: <p>Working with VS2017 Community I have written a service that works on my local machine.  I followed the instruction here: 
  <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/windows-services/walkthrough-creating-a-windows-service-application-in-the-component-designer" rel="noreferrer">https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/windows-services/walkthrough-creating-a-windows-service-application-in-the-component-designer</a></p>
  
  <p>and installed it successfully using Installutil.exe (as per instructions in above link).  All good.</p>
  
  <p>I now want to deploy that across six servers in our organisation.  In Microsoft's documentation about installing services (<a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/windows-services/how-to-install-and-uninstall-services" rel="noreferrer">https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/windows-services/how-to-install-and-uninstall-services</a>) it says:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>If you’re a developer who wants to release a Windows Service that users can install and uninstall you should use InstallShield</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>and links to a page that applies to VS2012 (can't post any more links as my reputation&lt;10)</p>
  
  <p>I have downloaded and installed the "Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Installer Projects" package, which allows me to create a Setup Project.  When I run it, it installs the project output correctly (i.e. copies the exe &amp; dll files to the correct folder in Program Files) but does not create the service.</p>
  
  <p>There's a detailed post about deploying services on this site (question 9021075) but when I follow those instructions I get a 1001 error on Install.  </p>
  
  <p>All the documentation I can find refers to earlier versions of VS or the previous Installer package, so I'm not even certain if I can do it with the software I am using.</p>
  
  <p>So, with VS2017 Community using Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Installer Projects, how to I create a stand-alone Installer to deploy a service that works correctly when installed locally using InstallUtil?</p>
  
  <p>Or can I use InstallUtil on the target machines?  I think I'd need to install Visual Studio on them for that, which I'd prefer not to.  Is there a quicker way?</p>
  
  <p>I only have 6 servers to install this on, so even some manual work-around might do.</p>