ClickOnce and myapp.application file

[Guest]

I have a click once winform application which includes myapp.application
file. The myapp.application contains the server url. The myapp.application
file gets signed before deployment. Everything work great if my only target
is my QA server.

Here's the first problem: the guys that run the servers won't take a
different MSI for QA and Production. If there's a single byte different on
the MSI, they just won't accept it. They want me to have QA_myapp.application
and PROD_myapp.applications files, and they will suck the right one out of
the MSI using their scripts and environment variables.

The big problem is that when they substitute PROD_myapp.application, the
user gets an error stating that the computed hash value doesn't match the
myapp.exe.manifest. Funny, the security model detects a change and stops the
user from installing, which is exactly what it's suppose to do.

Here's my question: Has anybody figured out how to link the
myapp.application file to files like myprodserver.xml and myqaserver.xml
based on environment variables, and if so, how? Also, even if I got this
working, am I still going to get bags by different computed hash values?

If you've been down this road, you probably feel my pain...

Thanks,
Randy

 

[RobinS]

We built our own configuration file with XML and we read/write to it
ourselves, rather than using the App.Config or Settings capabilities built
in to Visual Studio. There are just too many problems with those. We store
variables for both release and debug incarnations, and check and use the
one we're interested in when the application is running.

Robin S.