I made a fully functional windows game.  I clicked the build button at the top of the screen and then publish (name of game).  The installation of the game on my computer was fine, but when you try to run it, it crashes.  The "Game encountered a problem and needs to close..." window appeared.  You know, the window that says send and don't send as options at the bottom.  I get that.  What do I do.  Can someone please help me, this must be some general problem.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

civmaster88:

I clicked the build button at the top of the screen and then publish

XNA 2.0 does not support ClickOnce publication. XNA 3.0 will support it later this year. The current 3.0 CTP does not.

I have written a script for Inno Setup which works for most XNA 2.0 games. You may be able to use that with little difficulty.

I built the application first, then published it.  It still didn't work.  It did the same thing it did before.  I still don't know what to do.

You can't publish XNA framework game at this point in time. You can build .ccgame packages and you can research on how to build an installer (which is the information CDarklock was giving you), but you cannot just hit publish in the Visual Studio IDE. Explore the FAQs for information on what you need to get a game to run on someone else's PC and how to build an installer and check out your Help files for how to create a .ccgame package.

civmaster88:

I still don't know what to do.

I can help point you in a productive direction if I know more about what your goal is. Once you package your game, who is going to install it? Is this setup package to put on your company website, so customers can come and get the official build? Is it a test build, which only a few playtesters are going to use? The more I know about what you want, the more I can help you find what you need to get there.

I downloaded everything in the distributing your game article in the FAQ.  I found out that my game wasn't working because a sprite was missing.  It is in a folder call "Sprite" in the content folder of my project.  I loaded it just like it was loaded in the new 2D Gaming tutorial.  I tried making an installer, but I don't think that's the problem.  I still need some help.  To answer CDarklock's question, this is a video game for windows that I will distribute to my friends.  I don't want them to have load the project or anything.  I just want them to be able to play a finished version on their computer where thay don't have deal with any code or assets.

Behold!  The FAQs!

civmaster88:

I found out that my game wasn't working because a sprite was missing.  It is in a folder call "Sprite" in the content folder of my project.

When you try to publish through Visual Studio, the generated manifest will not include your Content project. This is why ClickOnce publishing is not supported. It doesn't work, they know it doesn't work, and if you want to try and make it work you're basically on your own.

The proper tools for making it work are mage.exe and mageui.exe, which are covered in detail on MSDN.