Hey all.

Does anyone here have experience deploying a Winform-based app over the Internet using ClickOnce?

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I've got a few apps that are being deployed using ClickOnce. However, they're not developed with LLBLGen. Do you have ? with regard to the ClickOnce or ClickOnce+LLBLGen?

Rob

rblinton wrote:

Do you have ? with regard to the ClickOnce or ClickOnce+LLBLGen?

Thanks for responding, Rob.

I've never used ClickOnce, but plan to use it to deploy my LLBLGen-based WinForm remoting solution. It's a sizable application, but it should operate well in a "sandbox" because no drivers are installed and no registry entries are made. There are a number of third-party assemblies that have to deploy as well, such as DevEx. Furthermore, this application uses Windows Workflow Foundation, so a beta version of WinFX has to be resident on the client machines.

That's basically it. How was your experience with ClickOnce and is there anything about my deployment (above) that seems like it may be problematic?

Thanks again.

Jeff

Just out of curiosity, but how come you didnt you WCF instead of remoting since you already are using winFX?

Jeff wrote:

rblinton wrote:

Do you have ? with regard to the ClickOnce or ClickOnce+LLBLGen?

Thanks for responding, Rob.

I've never used ClickOnce, but plan to use it to deploy my LLBLGen-based WinForm remoting solution. It's a sizable application, but it should operate well in a "sandbox" because no drivers are installed and no registry entries are made. There are a number of third-party assemblies that have to deploy as well, such as DevEx. Furthermore, this application uses Windows Workflow Foundation, so a beta version of WinFX has to be resident on the client machines.

That's basically it. How was your experience with ClickOnce and is there anything about my deployment (above) that seems like it may be problematic?

Thanks again.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Seems to be an 'xcopy-installation'. Then you shouldn't be afraid for any issues with ClickOnce. Only in the deployment-settings, you've to explicitly include all third-party dll's. The wizard assumes that they are installed in the clients GAC, but for DevEx/LLBLGen, that will not be the case most times

I'm using it now for one customer (two small applications), and it works pretty fine!

How does the .NET framework itself fit into the equation? If the framework is not on the target computer, can it be bootstrapped as part of the installation?

We have been using clickonce now for a while. And it feels really great. Just click publish and there you go, all clients using the new version.

A major problem though for some, is that there are some problems starting online-only apps from other browsers than IE. I think the MS guys really overlooked this by not supporting other browsers from the start. For those interested about this subject, take a look at this:

http://blogs.msdn.com/saurabh/archive/2006/03/02/541988.aspx

Also if you are obfuscating your apps, be prepared to get your hands dirty. You can't use Visual Studios publish UI, but do it from command line.

To jffreygg, you can add some prerequisites for your app, for example, installing .net 2.0 framework and wse 3.0.

Answer wrote:

Just out of curiosity, but how come you didnt you WCF instead of remoting since you already are using winFX?

Is Microsoft offering a GoLive licence for WCF as they are for WinFx? I haven't spend much time with it.

Jeff wrote:

Answer wrote:

Just out of curiosity, but how come you didnt you WCF instead of remoting since you already are using winFX?

Is Microsoft offering a GoLive licence for WCF as they are for WinFx? I haven't spend much time with it.

WCF is part of WinFx as is WF, WPF... nee, it is actually all called .Net Framework 3.0.

BOb

pilotboba wrote:

Jeff wrote:

Answer wrote:

Just out of curiosity, but how come you didnt you WCF instead of remoting since you already are using winFX?

Is Microsoft offering a GoLive licence for WCF as they are for WinFx? I haven't spend much time with it.

WCF is part of WinFx as is WF, WPF... nee, it is actually all called .Net Framework 3.0.

BOb

However, I don't believe the WPF has a golive license as of yet.