Visual Studio 2010 includes much improved deployment tools – but by default it only includes files “needed to run this application”. If you’re using the Spark view engine for ASP.NET MVC, then the Spark views aren’t considered one of them!
The trick is to ensure your .spark views have a build action of “Content” instead of the default “None”. Clearly remembering this each time would get somewhat tedious, so instead you can add the following registry entries:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftVisualStudio10.0Projects{F184B08F-C81C-45f6-A57F-5ABD9991F28F}FileExtensions.spark]
"DefaultBuildAction"="Content"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftVisualStudio10.0Projects{FAE04EC0-301F-11d3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}FileExtensions.spark]
"DefaultBuildAction"="Content"
(just add this to a .reg file and run it)