ClickOnce

[Guest]

I have today gone to production with my first .net 2.0 Windows forms app. I
distributed it using click once. I was impressed with the .net framework
1.1, 2.0 looked even better from a developer point of view (generics are
brilliant). But I have to say click once is the best thing microsoft has
ever done.

I published the app to my webserver, sent everyone a link, sat back and
grinned. It felt so good I even built a quick enhancement just so i could do
an update in the afternoon. The last software distribution i did was a vb6
app and involved sending ~20Mb of install set around to 100+ people, so you
can imagine how good this felt.

Well done microsoft!

If you havent played with this technology then i would definitely suggest
you have a go.

Desktop Apps are back!

Cheers

 

[Rene]

Just out of curiosity, how big are the assembly on the server and what is
the connection speed of your users?

 

[Guest]

Not v big ~500kb in total. It is not a big application. All users have
normal uk broadband - 500Kbs
--
David Steele
Recent VB6 - Dot net convert

Just out of curiosity, how big are the assembly on the server and what is
the connection speed of your users?

 

[Rene]

I have never played around with the Click-Once technology.



Do you know if the file is cached in the user's computer and if the server
file is only re-downloaded if the version number changes? Or is the file
downloaded from the server every time the user uses it.



Just curious.

Not v big ~500kb in total. It is not a big application. All users have
normal uk broadband - 500Kbs

 

[Bajoo]

Dear Divid,
When a user accesses a Launched ClickOnce application,
he clicks a link that points to the deployment manifest. The deployment
manifest has ".application" extension. The DFS(Deployment Framework
Service) reads the deployment manifest, locates the current version
from the application store, and launches it.In case of Installed
application, a client-side .NET component executes every time a user
runs the application. The startup SHIM reads a cached copy of the
deployment manifest to find the update settings of the application. Its
first task is to answer , "Is there a need to check for updates?" If
the answer is no, the application loads from the local program
directory, and the work of the SHIM is finished. if the update settings
in the manifest do call for an update check, SHIM reads the location of
the deployment provider and calls it to determine whether an update is
available. If the application is up-to-date, the SHIM launches the
application from the local program directory. If an update is
available, the application gets updated.

The client-side SHIM queries the cached manifest to
learn whether an update check was necessary.
Using an Installed ClickOnce deployment, you have a number of update
options to choose from. you can refine this process by configuring the
ClickOnce application to immediately check for updates upon startup.
you can allow the user to choose whether to accept the update.
You can also make the update mandatory by specifying the minimum
required version for the application and then setting that version to
the latest version of the application.
Another option is to programmatically implement updating. You can, for
example, add menu items to your application to check for updates. This
gives control to the user regarding when to update the application.

I hope it clears Click-Once to you.

Regards,
Naveed Ahmad Bajwa
http://bajoo.blogspot.com/

 

[Simon]

Many Thanks,

Very clear and concise answer.

Simon

 

[Rene]

Thnaks, great answer but, what about the .Net framework? Does the Click-Once
technology detects that the user does not have the proper .Net framework
installed and gracefully prompts the user to install it? Or does the
application simply crashes with the typical cryptic error message?

 

[Simon]

I'm going from memory, but I'm pretty sure you can set a dependency that
detects whether the framework is installed. Might want to look at
dependancies in the deployment project.

Simon

 

[Guest]

Yes you can configure the publish "Prerequisites" to include the MDAC 2.8,
the .NET framework 2.0 and the Report Viewer (if you need to have forms
display a SQL reports services report), among other dependencies which can be
configured to install thru ClickOnce. I too like the technology but is
anyone out there experiencing a problem regarding ADO not installed in GAC
errors (on the clients after ClickOnce completes)??? ANY help would be
greatly appreciated. So far the only way I can make my clients work is to
install the SDK on them and it's HUGE!