Courtesy of Brad Abrams, Jason Zander has an excellent post on NGen. It's timely, since our .Net class just completed the Setup and Deployment portion of the curriculum (where we discuss NGen).
In the past, setup and deployment was a dull topic to present to a class; I'd have to really get my carnival act together to engage the students with the material. With VS.Net, however, Microsoft has mercifully discarded the Package and Deployment Wizard and made a much more professional system for creating deployment packages. It may not quite put Installshield or Wise out of business (yet), but it's a vast improvement. Presenting the subject to a class is easier because I certainly “buy in” to the technology, especially the extensibility available through custom actions.
Happy .Netting!