Hi, Jack.
No-Touch, IMO, is a nice concept but still a bit buggy, from what I've
found. If you're okay with completely opening the security to your
webserver, then you shouldn't have any problems.
We wrote some custom .NET ActiveX controls (as well as other .NET COM
components) and it handled downloading them nicely. You can check to
make sure it downloads them by looking in the Windows (or
WinNT)\assembly\download directory. The .NET Framework handles
registering the assemblies so you don't have to worry about it.
Initially, our No-Touch application required passing in command-line
arguments as well, but after spending too much time trying to get it to
work, we opted for downloading and reading in an INI file instead. This
requires setting the client computer to give FULL TRUST to the webserver
though.
Versioning is very important when it comes to No-Touch. When you change
the AssemblyVersion tag in AssemblyInfo.vb, the newer version will be
downloaded and placed in a new directory...it will not overwrite the
older version.
Keep in mind that the application is actually run inside of the IEEXEC
wrapper. We had some screen painting/refreshing issues where this is
concerned. For example, we have issues where, in Windows XP, you cannot
take a screenshot of the window even though it appears to have
focus...also, using ALT-TAB will not even show the application is
running. However, if you look at the process list in Task Manager,
IEEXEC is there. Also with Windows XP, there is the option of "grouping"
like applications to minimize the amount of space taken up on the task
bar. We've seen issues where "ieexec" is in the task bar, not the
application name.
Deployment is a breeze though. All you have to do to release a newer
version of your application is update the file on the webserver and
you're done. Of course, make sure you update any dependencies as well.
Another thing that I didn't find documented is when you launch the
application from a shortcut on your desktop, a Windows IE window will
come up with a "Page not found" message. Usually on Windows XP machines,
it will go away automatically, but for prior versions, the user will
have to close the window manually. This could cause some "user
confusion" and cause them to think there is an error running the
program.
Despite the drawbacks, we still implemented the No-Touch deployment for
three major applications that are used by 100+ users (on a LAN) daily.
It's nice to post updates on a webserver and tell the user to close it
and restart it to fix a problem or upgrade.
Hope this answers some of your questions!
