When it comes to web applications specifically, then you will encounter many techniques that can be utilized as a deployment strategy for your web application:

XCOPY Deployment: The most trivial technique is to simply copy your web application files to the production server hard drive and set a virtual directory there. The setting of a virtual directory is needed by several deployment schemes and can be achieved from Internet Information Manager Microsoft Management Consol (MMC snap-in). Because developers typically use the command line order 'XCOPY' to implement this technique, this technique is typically referred to as XCOPY Deployment.

Copy Web Site Copy Web Site is a new technique provided in ASP.NET 2.0 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 (Available from the Website / Copy Web Site... Menu option). Although this technique is performed from inside Visual Studio (in contrast with the XCOPY deployment technique which is performed from outside Visual Studio), there is no compilation performed at all. All your pages are still in their source code form on the production server. Some developers see this fact as a high risk on their intellectual property. Two extra disadvantages of this technique (and in fact any other technique that does not involve any compilation before deployment) are reduced error checking and the slow initial page load.