The Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.5 provides a redistributable installer that also contains Service Pack and cumulative updates for the .NET Framework version 2.0 and the NET Framework version 3.0.
I thought my requirements were simple and *should* apply to *any* other .NET developer out there so i was surprised that i could not find this solution already on this site. I arrived at my solution thanks to 3 other articles. By mashing the concepts from those articles together i got what i wanted.
The Windows Installer XML (WiX) is a toolset that builds Windows installation packages from XML source code. The toolset supports a command line environment that developers may integrate into their build processes to build MSI and MSM setup packages.
NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) is a professional open source system to create Windows installers. It is designed to be as small and flexible as possible and is therefore very suitable for internet distribution. Being a user's first experience