DotNetNuke comes in a variety of different packages, intended for different users. The packages and their uses are discussed below.

Note: if you download a file off the internet most versions of Microsoft OS's will mark that file as being potentially unsafe by storing additional zone information with the file. If you attempt to unzip this file and use it in a website or compile it in visual studio.net you will encouter errors, so please ensure you right click the zip file first, select properties and then press the "unblock" button, before unzipping the download.

Install

Contains only the files needed for a run-time deployment to a web server. Download the Install Package if you want to deploy a live site to a web server with the minimum required files. A guide on how to install DotNetNuke can be found here

Upgrade

Contains only the files needed for upgrading an existing installation (does not include module packages). Download the Upgrade Package if you want to upgrade an existing installation to a newer version.

Note: The upgrade package does not contain a web.config file so that the package contents can be unzipped over an existing install.

A guide on upgrading DotNetNuke can be found here

Source

Contains everything including full application source code for the DotNetNuke framework. Download the Source Package if you are a web developer interested in the DotNetNuke web application framework source code.

After downloading, please make sure you unblock the source zip by right clicking on properties and choosing unblock before uncompressing it otherwise it will not compile as expected in vs.net.

Note: source packages do not contain a web.config package. Developers should rename either the development.config or release.config to web.config before opening the package in vs.net to build the project. In addition, since 5.6.0 the source package does not contain a BIN folder - this will be created automatically and populated with the relevant dll's after the package has been built in vs.net. Please note, you should first of all build in "release" mode as this configuration will also run a number of post-build steps that copy files to their correct location.

Note: the source packages of core module projects (such as Events, Forum) are not included in the framework source package and must be downloaded separately from their CodePlex project download pages.

A guide on how to install the source package of DotNetNuke can be found here.

Visual Studio Starter Kit

This MSI installs Visual Studio Templates for creating websites, modules and skins in Visual Studio. Download the Starter Kit if you are a web developer interested in creating skins or modules for the DotNetNuke web application framework using Visual Studio.

Web plaform installer

This package was created to help users who want to use Web plaform installer to ease their deployments. The package can be used directly from within IIS once the platform installer has been added, or from within the installer itself.

C# source code

This version was introduced in 5.4.1 and is an unsupported platform preview. It's intended to help developers more comfortable with c#, and to guage the level of interest in that version. It is not intended to indicate a move to a c# only version. Please note the following warning:

Use at your own risk! At present this is strictly a project for developer interest. Although the contributors are professional and conscientious, there is no official testing or validation applied to this code base or packages. We highly discourage any attempt at production usage based on this risk.

Note: With version 6.0 DotNetNuke moved over to using C# as the base language for all builds.

Other downloads

As well as the code based downloads a number of other pacakages are available to users.

Symbol files

Symbol files were introduced with the 5.2.0 release - more details can be read about them at Symbol files and intellisense

Most users will never need the pdb files for their installation, however, if you are troubleshooting error messages in your event log then the pdb files will provide additional information which can aid in troubleshooting.

CHM files

These were introduced with 5.5.0 (previously they were available as a community project . The CHM file is a windows help file contained the DotNetNuke API documentation. These are generated based on code XML documentation comments - at present there is not 100% coverage but the reference team are working hard on enhancing this.

Please make sure you unblock the chm file (right click in, select properties and click "unblock") otherwise the CHM file will open but will not show any text.