Do I need to install MVC 3/4 on web server to run mvc application
Solution 1:
You can run an MVC application without installing MVC on your server. There is something called deployable dependency in Visual studio. That will publish your MVC DLLs in your bin folder when you publish it.
from the msdn page,
This will add assemblies (DLL files) to a Web site project or Web application project. When you deploy your Web site or application, the files are included in the deployed project. This is useful if applications or technologies that your project depends on are not already installed on the server that will host your Web project. For example, you can use this feature to deploy an ASP.NET MVC 3 Web application to a server that does not have ASP.NET MVC 3 installed.
Right Click on Project and Select Add Deployable Dependency from the context menu
Select what all DLLs you want to be published
After clicking OK, You will see a new folder called _bin_deployableAssemblies. You can do normal Publishing procedure now and you will have the dlls in the bin folder of the publish output.
Check this post for more details http://haacked.com/archive/2011/05/25/bin-deploying-asp-net-mvc-3.aspx
You should have Visual Studio 2010 SP1. Otherwise it will not be shown in the context menu when you right click on the project to be published.
EDIT : As of MVC4, all necessary assemblies to run an MVC application are automatically added to the bin directory, and any MVC4 application is bin-deployable (means you can run it in a server without explicitly installing MVC) . For this reason, the Include Deployable Assemblies dialog has been removed from Visual Studio 2012
Solution 2:
You no longer have the option to "Add deployable dependencies" in Visual Studio 2012. So you'll have to do it manually, by bin deploying all the MVC assemblies:
Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure
System.Web.Helpers
System.Web.Mvc
System.Web.Razor
System.Web.WebPages
System.Web.WebPages.Deployment
System.Web.WebPages.Razor
A step by step guide is found here.
Solution 3:
When u create a MVCx specific project in Visual Studio you will see lots of MVC.* references are added to your project and by default all of these reference property "Copy Local" is set as "True" means these references will be part of your final solution whenever you will deploy to. You can also verify that these MVC specific references are also part of your BIN folder.
Finally when you will package this solution and publish to a specific Web Server or to Windows Azure or use WebDeploy, all of these references will be part of your package also. And because these references are shipped in your package so where ever you will deploy the solution, all MVC specific references will be there and because of that you don't need to deploy MVC to those specific servers.
I would also like to add that any time when you add a specific reference to your project in Visual Studio, set its property "Copy Local" to TRUE so that reference will always be part of your final solution, and will save you from trouble in future.
Solution 4:
You only need to have the dlls deployed into the bin of your project. For an example of how to prepare your web site for release check out the following blog post:
running-an-asp-net-mvc-3-app-on-a-web-server-that-doesn-t-have-asp-net-mvc-3-installed.aspx.