Install application made in Visual Studio on client machine

Not usually.

First, you need to have the .Net Framework, in the version you required in your application, installed on the machine. If it does not, it needs to be shipped together and install first.

It is common to have other dependencies besides .exe . Usually other files are needed as well.

When talking about the database are you talking about the software or your database? If it is the software, yes it does, unless you can ensure that it is installed. If it is the base, it depends on how you are going to insert it into the system.

But we're talking about the client side, right? Is not the database server-side? If it is, it should be a separate installation. If the application is truly client-server, you can set the database to work along with the server software, if the client accesses the database directly then it might not even be the case with an installer. Maybe it's just the case of a normal application that loads the data on the database server. As it may, it may even be a simple script , it does not have to be an executable.

So it's possible to just copy the files and everything works. This is called XCOPY installing .

In some cases you need to make some extra settings.

So it's common to use an installer to do this. Visual Studio provides a simple one that solves most of the cases. In newer versions of VS you will want to install a install project extension .

There is a huge amount of more complete installers , the majority paid.

The installer has the advantage that it can take care of installing or upgrading the .Net Framework.

Note that it is possible to do without an installer, but there is usually some manual work required and copy everything correctly.

There is also the possibility of Click Once which is a .Net technology where the person clicks on the package and everything starts to run, without an official installation. It is not easy to make it work properly and it is not usually what the person wants. Neither has updated documentation. There are cases for him, but it's rare.

Some people create their own installer.

Another thing you need to look at is update. It's even more complicated, and few are right.