In the process of evaluating the way we develop and deploy apps to our 2 environments (Test & Live). Current setup:
Test Server with VS 2013 and BizTalk 2013R2 installed (all app dev is done here, tested and then exported to MSI and installed on Live BizTalk server)
Intended setup:
Local Developer Desktops would have VS 2013 and BizTalk 2013R2 installed, with app development development done locally. Apps would then be deployed to Test Server for QA, and finally exported as MSI across to Live Server.
Questions;
Can you deploy from a local desktop to a network/server location?
No, you cannot deploy from Visual Studio to another server. What you can do however is to create a build server that gets the code from source control, and creates a MSI package, that is then pushed out to your target server via tools such as Microsoft DevOps, BTDF, Octopus Deploy, Power Shell scripting etc.
Automating your build and deployment reduces a lot of risks.
Do you have to develop in VS 2013 to deploy to Biz 2013 R2, or are the compatibility settings in VS 2019 that you can configure to emulate VS 2013?
Each version of BizTalk needs to be developed in a specific version of Visual Studio with the appropriate BizTalk SDK installed. So no, you cannot use Visual Studio 2019 for BizTalk 2013 R2.