ClickOnce Generated Shortcut Folder

[Stewart Berman]

I have a VB.NET simple ClickOnce application. I have defined the name of the publisher and the name
of the application. Normally you would put the application shortcut in a folder with the name of
the application. The ClickOnce installation process creates the application shortcut (.appref-ms
file) in a folder with the name of the publisher.

IOW,
The shortcut folder structure is:
Start
All Programs
Publisher Name
(Application shortcut)
Instead of:
Start
All Programs
Application name
(Application shortcut)

Is there a way to change that behavior so the installation process creates a shortcut folder using
the application name instead of the publisher name?

 

[Linda Liu[MSFT]]

Hi Stewart,

I am afraid there's no way to change the shortcut folder structure of
installed ClickOnce applications, because there's no way to configure this
setting in either the deployment/application manifests or within the Visual
Studio.

IMO, the shortcut folder structure of a ClickOnce application is hard coded
in the ClickOnce implementation.

If you have any concern, please feel free to let me know.

Sincerely,
Linda Liu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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[Stewart Berman]

Does that mean if you have three ClickOnce applications from the same publisher the shortcuts will
all be in the same folder -- the publisher name? This does not seem to make any sense.

 

[Linda Liu[MSFT]]

Hi Stewart,

Does that mean if you have three ClickOnce applications from the same

publisher the shortcuts will all be in the same folder -- the publisher
name?

Yes, it is.

One way to think about the situation is that with ClickOnce, end-users are
establishing a level of trust between themselves and publishers of the
applications that they use. If the publisher releases multiple
applications, then customers would expect to see that those applications
are connected by some common thread (in this case, the publisher). This is
then reflected in the following ways:
1. Multiple applications distributed from the same publisher appear under
the same path in the start menu
2. Multiple applications distributed from the same publisher are identified
as such in the trust manager prompt (e.g. the publisher's name is displayed
in the trust manager dialog)
3. Should the applications in question be signed by the same certificate,
and that certificate is placed into the trusted publisher certificate
store, then no further trust prompts should be required as trust between
the end-user and the publisher of the application is already established.

Ultimately, the goal with ClickOnce is to reduce the number of times that
an end-user has to click on dialogs that contain verbs such as "ok" or
"run" or "install" once that trust is established. After that, since the
user trusts the publisher, there needs to be consistency as to where that
publishers' applications appear in the user's start menu so as to reduce
the potential confusion for end-users.

In addition, in .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, we introduced a feature that allows
the developers to specify the name of the folder on the Start menu in which
the application will be installed. For example:

In the deployment manifest, set suiteName to a name for the folder which
your shortcut is in.

<description asmv2ublisher="myPublisher" asmv2roduct="myApp"
asmv2:suiteName="mySuite" asmv2:supportUrl="http://www.microsoft.com" />

The folder structure will be like:
All Programs
myPublisher
mySuite
shortcut of myApp

Probably this feature is close to what you want.

Note that modifying the deployment manifest requires you to resign the
deployment manifest. You can do it using the Mage.exe tool.

Hope this helps.
If you have any concern, please feel free to let me know.


Sincerely,
Linda Liu
Microsoft Online Community Support

 

[Stewart Berman]

Thanks. As I said the VS 2005 publication process with all application shortcuts from the same
publisher going into a single folder with the publisher's name didn't make sense. Glad to see this
was fixed in 3.5. Is this available on the application's properties' Publish page as an option in
VS 2008?

 

[Linda Liu[MSFT]]

Hi Stewart,

Thank you for your reply!

The suit name is a new feature enhancements starting in VS2008 SP1. See the
following document for more information on new deployment feaures in VS2008
and VS2008 SP1:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5h2db54x.aspx

I haven't installed VS2008 SP so far, so I don't know if the suit name
feature is supported in VS2008 SP1 or not. You can have a try.

If the new feature has not been supported in VS IDE, you have to modify the
deployment manifest manually and then re-sign the deployment manifest using
the mage.exe tool.

Hope this helps.
If you have any question, please feel free to let me know.

Sincerely,
Linda Liu
Microsoft Online Community Support

 

[Stewart Berman]

I will try in a couple of weeks. I am waiting for Windows 7 RTM before rebuilding my development
machines as a complete rebuild takes a week or two to reinstall everything from scratch and then
apply all updates (Microsoft's and other vendors).

 

[Linda Liu[MSFT]]

Thanks Stewart for your response!

Since you will try in a couple of weeks, I'd like to close this issue
temporarily. If you need further help on this particular issue later,
please feel free to re-open this post and I will follow up with in time.

Thank your for using our MSDN Managed Newsgroup Support Service!

Have a good day.

Sincerely,
Linda Liu
Microsoft Online Community Support

 

[Stewart Berman]

Please close it. If I can't get it working in VS 2008 I will be back.