ClickOnce Deployment Profiles

[moondaddy]

I need to have multiple deployment profiles for a .net 2.0 winforms project.
This is my requirement:

1) Re-use same project for multiple ClickOnce deployment profiles.
2) Each profile will have it's own custom deployment properties such as
Publish Version Number, Start Menu and application Name in start menu.

For example, in the past (before ClickOnce deployment) I had to build
Setup.exe files and distribute them to various clients/users. These install
files were created using Installsheild which allowed me to create a
installation project and utilize all of the application files from my
project called myApp for multiple InstallShield projects. This way I only
needed to have one VS winforms app. Then each InstallShield project would
pull in all required files for myApp and then a customized unique
app.config.exe file for each different installation. All InstallShield
project could share the same start menu path but have its own unique start
menu button and target install location. For example, lets say I have 5
different installs of the same app like this:

myApp_DEMO
myApp_Client1
myApp_Client2
myApp_Client2_Dept_1
myApp_Training

The location in the start menu for these would share the same path like
this:

Start/myApp/myApp_DEMO
Start/myApp/myApp_Client1
Start/myApp/myApp_Client2
Start/myApp/myApp_Client2_Dept_1
Start/myApp/myApp_Training

and the target installation location would be this:

....Program Files/myApp/myApp_DEMO
....Program Files/myApp/myApp_Client1
....Program Files/myApp/myApp_Client2
....Program Files/myApp/myApp_Client2_Dept_1
....Program Files/myApp/myApp_Training

Now in the ClickOnce world I want the start menus to remain the same, but I
realize that the target installation paths will be different which is OK,
and also the path on the web server to publish to for each different version
will be different.

What's the best way to achieve this? I'm surprised that there has been no
mention of such design configurations.

Thanks.

 

[Gary Chang[MSFT]]

Hi,

I do understand your concern on this issue. But due to the limitation of
the ClickOnce deployment, the functionality your want are not supported.
The ClickOnce application would be installed into the system's ClickOnce
application cache, there is no way to specify it per application. By the
way, VS2005 doesn't have a ClickOnce deployment project, so I don't think
you can reuse a ClickOnce deployment's profile to other winform projects.

Thanks!

Best regards,

Gary Chang
Microsoft Community Support
======================================================
PLEASE NOTE the newsgroup SECURE CODE and PASSWORD will be updated at 9:00
AM PST, February 14, 2006. Please complete a re-registration process by
entering the secure code mmpng06 when prompted. Once you have entered the
secure code mmpng06, you will be able to update your profile and access the
partner newsgroups.
======================================================
When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from this issue.
======================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
======================================================