Visual Studio 'Publish' command fails

It's worth checking the output window. I've just had a publish fail because I had deleted an image outside of VS so VS was complaining that the image couldn't be found, but this information was only displayed in the output window.

See this link for more information: http://ericfickes.com/2009/08/find-out-why-visual-studios-publish-fails/

It happens to us when there is an error in markup (!). Bad thing is that VS will just swallow the error and just tell you Failed.

What I suggest is to run your publish from command line using MSBuild. It's not that straightforward but it works (once you get into it).

I've since discovered that the reason for these particular publish failures was due the "Delete Existing Files" option being checked. Using Visual Studio 2008 under a non-administrative account on Windows Vista could cause a permissions error while attempting to delete the existing files. The publish would fail silently after encountering a file that Visual Studio had insufficient access to delete. Once the files were deleted manually outside of Vidual Studio, the publish functioned normally.

I have not had this issue with Windows 7; I assume the UAC changes in Windows 7 fixed the problem.