I want to share my XNA-game with friends. I decided to write a Setup project for it. I followed the great article from Paul Stubs:

http://blogs.msdn.com/pstubbs/archive/2006/12/28/build-a-setup-project-for-your-xna-game.aspx

My problem is that the installer needs an URL where he can download the XNA redistrubutable.

Paul uses as url

http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/9/e/e9ef6d37-ae65-48fd-aa0e-e9a8129c9868/xnafx_redist.msi

But this doesn't work any more (since the refresh?)

Does anyoune know which link to use? Or another way to create an installer?

http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/7/d/17d2b68e-3ba4-4ec3-b225-cbd3d2e510a2/xnafx_redist.msi (which you can get from the view source of the official download page ). Don't forget you also need certain parts of DirectX too see the FAQ

However you have nicely illustrated exactly why you SHOULDN'T do this. Microsoft don't guarantee that particular location will always be there. This means any installer you write today may not work tomorrow just as any installer written with the old ULR won't work today.

Bottom line is that the only 2 supported ways to ensure XNA Framework are:

1. Ask the user to install it

2. Include the redist in your installer

This has been an ongoing problem with DirectX (native and Managed) too - the MVPs and others have asked Microsoft for a supported downloadable solution for a long time with no results. In fact XNA is worse because you have to require DirectX components too which the XNA runtime doesn't install for you. I really hope the XNA guys do something for their next release (yeah I know they have a lot of other features too) because packaging 3 huge runtimes with a 200k .Net EXE is a bit of a joke for a downloadable game.

All I can suggest it that you send an email to directx@microsoft.com and submit a bug in connect about install scenarios for XNA Framework.

Someone did document a different way of making an installer - see the Xna Installer FAQ