Visual Studio Installer > How To Launch App at End of Installer

Warning: The application will end up running as a high privilege account, which has security and user experience implications.

To run any application after the installation is complete,

1. Right-click on your setup project, click on Custom Actions.
2. Then right-click on Commit, Add Custom Action, and choose the file you would like to run. (Note that it has to be in your application folder already, which shouldn't be a problem in your case since you are running your program anyway.
3. Simply choose the output of your project.
4. Then, click on this added .exe, and change InstallerClass to false. This is crucial because it will look for an installer program otherwise.
5. You could even pass parameters to your .exe by adding them to the Arguments property

Warning: The application will end up running as a high privilege account, which has security and user experience implications.

In Visual Studio 2010 here it is easy...

Step1: Add a new installer class to the application project that you wish to run after install, call it what you like.

Step2: Add the following code to the Installer class you just added replcaing MyApplication.exe with the name of yours.

Public Overrides Sub Commit(ByVal savedState As System.Collections.IDictionary)

    MyBase.Commit(savedState)
    System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Me.Context.Parameters("AssemblyPath")) + "\MyApplication.exe")

End Sub

Compile and go...

The solution from https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/astebner/2006/08/12/mailbag-how-can-i-customize-an-msi-in-the-visual-studio-setupdeployment-project/ adds a checkbox at the end of the setup to choose if you want to start the application or not. You can modify the script to be checked by default...or even hide it.

The big advantage here is, that the application won't run with elevated rights like Maurice Flanagan mentioned.

The required script you need is:

// EnableLaaunchApplication.js <msi-file>
// Performs a post-build fixup of an msi to launch a specific file when the install has completed


// Configurable values
var checkboxChecked = true;         // Is the checkbox on the finished dialog checked by default?
var checkboxText = "Launch [ProductName]";  // Text for the checkbox on the finished dialog
var filename = "WindowsApplication1.exe";   // The name of the executable to launch - change this to match the file you want to launch at the end of your setup


// Constant values from Windows Installer
var msiOpenDatabaseModeTransact = 1;

var msiViewModifyInsert         = 1
var msiViewModifyUpdate         = 2
var msiViewModifyAssign         = 3
var msiViewModifyReplace        = 4
var msiViewModifyDelete         = 6



if (WScript.Arguments.Length != 1)
{
    WScript.StdErr.WriteLine(WScript.ScriptName + " file");
    WScript.Quit(1);
}

var filespec = WScript.Arguments(0);
var installer = WScript.CreateObject("WindowsInstaller.Installer");
var database = installer.OpenDatabase(filespec, msiOpenDatabaseModeTransact);

var sql
var view
var record

try
{
    var fileId = FindFileIdentifier(database, filename);
    if (!fileId)
        throw "Unable to find '" + filename + "' in File table";


    WScript.Echo("Updating the Control table...");
    // Modify the Control_Next of BannerBmp control to point to the new CheckBox
    sql = "SELECT `Dialog_`, `Control`, `Type`, `X`, `Y`, `Width`, `Height`, `Attributes`, `Property`, `Text`, `Control_Next`, `Help` FROM `Control` WHERE `Dialog_`='FinishedForm' AND `Control`='BannerBmp'";
    view = database.OpenView(sql);
    view.Execute();
    record = view.Fetch();
    record.StringData(11) = "CheckboxLaunch";
    view.Modify(msiViewModifyReplace, record);
    view.Close();

    // Resize the BodyText and BodyTextRemove controls to be reasonable
    sql = "SELECT `Dialog_`, `Control`, `Type`, `X`, `Y`, `Width`, `Height`, `Attributes`, `Property`, `Text`, `Control_Next`, `Help` FROM `Control` WHERE `Dialog_`='FinishedForm' AND `Control`='BodyTextRemove'";
    view = database.OpenView(sql);
    view.Execute();
    record = view.Fetch();
    record.IntegerData(7) = 33;
    view.Modify(msiViewModifyReplace, record);
    view.Close();

    sql = "SELECT `Dialog_`, `Control`, `Type`, `X`, `Y`, `Width`, `Height`, `Attributes`, `Property`, `Text`, `Control_Next`, `Help` FROM `Control` WHERE `Dialog_`='FinishedForm' AND `Control`='BodyText'";
    view = database.OpenView(sql);
    view.Execute();
    record = view.Fetch();
    record.IntegerData(7) = 33;
    view.Modify(msiViewModifyReplace, record);
    view.Close();

    // Insert the new CheckBox control
    sql = "INSERT INTO `Control` (`Dialog_`, `Control`, `Type`, `X`, `Y`, `Width`, `Height`, `Attributes`, `Property`, `Text`, `Control_Next`, `Help`) VALUES ('FinishedForm', 'CheckboxLaunch', 'CheckBox', '18', '117', '343', '12', '3', 'LAUNCHAPP', '{\\VSI_MS_Sans_Serif13.0_0_0}" + checkboxText + "', 'Line1', '|')";
    view = database.OpenView(sql);
    view.Execute();
    view.Close();



    WScript.Echo("Updating the ControlEvent table...");
    // Modify the Order of the EndDialog event of the FinishedForm to 1
    sql = "SELECT `Dialog_`, `Control_`, `Event`, `Argument`, `Condition`, `Ordering` FROM `ControlEvent` WHERE `Dialog_`='FinishedForm' AND `Event`='EndDialog'";
    view = database.OpenView(sql);
    view.Execute();
    record = view.Fetch();
    record.IntegerData(6) = 1;
    view.Modify(msiViewModifyReplace, record);
    view.Close();

    // Insert the Event to launch the application
    sql = "INSERT INTO `ControlEvent` (`Dialog_`, `Control_`, `Event`, `Argument`, `Condition`, `Ordering`) VALUES ('FinishedForm', 'CloseButton', 'DoAction', 'VSDCA_Launch', 'LAUNCHAPP=1', '0')";
    view = database.OpenView(sql);
    view.Execute();
    view.Close();



    WScript.Echo("Updating the CustomAction table...");
    // Insert the custom action to launch the application when finished
    sql = "INSERT INTO `CustomAction` (`Action`, `Type`, `Source`, `Target`) VALUES ('VSDCA_Launch', '210', '" + fileId + "', '')";
    view = database.OpenView(sql);
    view.Execute();
    view.Close();



    if (checkboxChecked)
    {
        WScript.Echo("Updating the Property table...");
        // Set the default value of the CheckBox
        sql = "INSERT INTO `Property` (`Property`, `Value`) VALUES ('LAUNCHAPP', '1')";
        view = database.OpenView(sql);
        view.Execute();
        view.Close();
    }



    database.Commit();
}
catch(e)
{
    WScript.StdErr.WriteLine(e);
    WScript.Quit(1);
}



function FindFileIdentifier(database, fileName)
{
    var sql
    var view
    var record

    // First, try to find the exact file name
    sql = "SELECT `File` FROM `File` WHERE `FileName`='" + fileName + "'";
    view = database.OpenView(sql);
    view.Execute();
    record = view.Fetch();
    if (record)
    {
        var value = record.StringData(1);
        view.Close();
        return value;
    }
    view.Close();

    // The file may be in SFN|LFN format.  Look for a filename in this case next
    sql = "SELECT `File`, `FileName` FROM `File`";
    view = database.OpenView(sql);
    view.Execute();
    record = view.Fetch();
    while (record)
    {
        if (StringEndsWith(record.StringData(2), "|" + fileName))
        {
            var value = record.StringData(1);
            view.Close();
            return value;
        }

        record = view.Fetch();
    }
    view.Close();
    
}

function StringEndsWith(str, value)
{
    if (str.length < value.length)
        return false;

    return (str.indexOf(value, str.length - value.length) != -1);
}

Edit the file to show your desired name and the name of the executable, put that file beside your .vdproj Setup project and in the postbuild add following line:

CALL cscript.exe "$(ProjectDir)EnableLaunchApplication.js" "$(BuiltOuputPath)"