Clickonce update requires new prerequisite

[Ken Lemieux]

Hi,

I have a Clickonce application currently deployed with .NET 2.0 as a
prerequisite. This application has been updated to use features in .NET 3.5,
(file association). When my current app sees the available update the install
fails because the .NET 3.5 framework is not present. Initial installations
are fine.

How do I enforce installing of a prerequisite upon update of a Clickonce
application?

 

[RobinS]

If you want the application to use .Net 3.5 features, you must deploy it
with .Net 3.5 as a prerequisite. Are you deploying it with .Net 3.5 checked
as a prerequisite under the <Prerequisites> section of the Publish page
rather than .Net 2.0?

RobinS.

 

[Linda Liu[MSFT]]

Hi Kenneth,

You need to select .NET Framework 3.5 as a prerequisite when you publish
the upgraded application.

To do this, right click the project item in the Solution Explorer in VS2008
and choose 'Properties'. In the Project Designer, switch to the 'Publish'
tab and click the 'Prerequisites...' button.

In the Prerequisite dialog, select the checkbox before the 'Create setup
program to install prerequisite components' option and select the checkbox
before the '.NET Framework 3.5' item in the list.

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

Sincerely,
Linda Liu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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[Ken Lemieux]

Thanks for the responses RobinS and Linda.
I apologize, because I neglected to tell you that I had already checked 3.5
Framework and 3.1 Windows Installer as prerequisites. Below is the text from
the "System Update Required" dialog box thats displayed when an installed 2.0
Clickonce application detects an update requiring the 3.5 Framework.

"Unable to install or run the application. The application requires that
assembly WindowsBase Version 3.0.0.0 be installed in the Global Assembly
Cache (GAC) first.

More information on this system update can be found by visiting the site
here."

 

[RobinS]

The machine you are trying to install it on -- what OS is it running?

RobinS.
GoldMail, Inc.
-------------------------------------

 

[Ken Lemieux]

XP sp2, I know 3.5 is not supported by Win2K. Remeber inital install work
correctly, the problem only surfaces when upgrading the app from 2.0 to 3.5.

 

[jim]

Thanks for the heads up on 3.5.

jim

XP sp2, I know 3.5 is not supported by Win2K. Remeber inital install work
correctly, the problem only surfaces when upgrading the app from 2.0 to
3.5.

 

[jim]

Robin,

Is your Company's ClickOnce implementation for internal software or external
users? Also, what have you noticed about the bandwidth requirements of
running a ClickOnce application? Is ClickOnce very "chatty" or does it
require careful planning to contain bandwidth costs?

Thanks!

Jim

 

[Jeffrey Tan[MSFT]]

Hi Kenneth,

Thanks for the feedback.

My colleage Linda is out of office for vacation, so I will continue help
you on this issue. I have discussed this issue with the ClickOnce
deployment team, they confirmed that the only way to install prerequisites
is to run the bootstrapper, Setup.exe published by VS. Update through
shortcut will not get prerequisites installed.

You should run Setup.exe from the publish location. This will install the
prereqs and update the application as well.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Jeffrey Tan
Microsoft Online Community Support
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where an initial response from the community or a Microsoft Support
Engineer within 1 business day is acceptable. Please note that each follow
up response may take approximately 2 business days as the support
professional working with you may need further investigation to reach the
most efficient resolution. The offering is not appropriate for situations
that require urgent, real-time or phone-based interactions or complex
project analysis and dump analysis issues. Issues of this nature are best
handled working with a dedicated Microsoft Support Engineer by contacting
Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS) at
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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[jim]

Hi Jeffrey,

Is your company's ClickOnce app deployed across a LAN, WAM or the internet?

jim

 

[RobinS]

While we use the software internally, it is an external product.
(http://www.goldmail.com) Anybody can sign up for it. There's a free
version, although I'm not certain how obvious that is from the signup -- I
think when you get to the page where you talk about $, you find the free
version there. They recently changed that, and I haven't checked it out yet.

We haven't noticed any problems with the bandwidth. However, we are using a
Content Delivery Network to deploy the application widely. We have thousands
of users, and hope that number grows, and we need to have a scalable
solution. Internally for QA purposes, we deploy our app for about 30 people
on our local server, and haven't had any problems with it.

For testing, if you are running IIS on your machine, you can deploy to your
own web server by publishing to http://localhost/appname. I do this for
testing the deployment, and then install it on the same machine, or
sometimes a different one.

Our application is only about 10MB. When the user installs it the first
time, it checks for .Net 2.0 and installs as a prerequisite if necessary
(from MSFT's website). I think we've had some issues here and there with
that, especially on older machines. (Technically, we only support XP and
Vista).

Every time the user runs the app, it checks for an update. If there is one,
it only copies over the updated files. It runs really fast. We're
considering doing forced updates, and it runs so fast it's almost
negligible. There's no additional chatter, until the user exits and runs the
app again.

ClickOnce also provides an API, so if you don't want to do automatic updates
through the deployment, you can put an option on a menu and let the user
check for updates. We weren't keen about this, because we all know how often
we voluntarily update anything.

RobinS.
GoldMail, Inc.
--------------------------------

Robin,

Is your Company's ClickOnce implementation for internal software or
external users? Also, what have you noticed about the bandwidth
requirements of running a ClickOnce application? Is ClickOnce very
"chatty" or does it require careful planning to contain bandwidth costs?

Thanks!

Jim

 

[RobinS]

I thought Jim meant that they were originally deploying their application
with the .Net 2.0 framework. They have added 3.5 features, and changed it to
deploy with a prerequisite of .Net 3.5 instead of .Net 2.0, and people who
have the original version are having problems with installing the upgrade.

Jim -- am I reading that right, or are the people getting updates actually
getting .Net 3.5 and then the update works okay?

RobinS.
GoldMail, Inc.

 

[jim]

I would agree that forced updates are the best way to go.

Thanks so much for the info.....still reading the Brian's book.

jim