Why not use Winforms for corporate intranet instead of ASP.net

[Mike Lopez]

Hello.

What is a good argument for not using Windows Forms for a corporate intranet
and using ASP.Net instead?

My thinking is that, historically, a desktop application used as an intranet
app was impractical simply because of the binary (.EXE's and DLL's)
administration headaches. Since .Net WinForms is an XCOPY deployment,
doesn't that remove that adminstrative headache?

I am in the process of designing a "real" intranet for our company and am
considering using WinForms and not ASP.Net. My thinking is any updates
needed on the clients' machines could be easily distributed by coding the
WinForm app to check for updates and performing the necessary XCOPY(s).

All thoughts and opinions are welcome.

Thanks in advance,

Mike

 

[Jacob Grass [MVP]]

Hello.

What is a good argument for not using Windows Forms for a corporate
intranet and using ASP.Net instead?

My thinking is that, historically, a desktop application used as an
intranet app was impractical simply because of the binary (.EXE's and
DLL's) administration headaches. Since .Net WinForms is an XCOPY
deployment, doesn't that remove that adminstrative headache?

I am in the process of designing a "real" intranet for our company and am
considering using WinForms and not ASP.Net. My thinking is any updates
needed on the clients' machines could be easily distributed by coding the
WinForm app to check for updates and performing the necessary XCOPY(s).

All thoughts and opinions are welcome.

I would read some of the articles here as they cover "smart-client"
deployment pretty thoroughly:
http://www.windowsforms.com/Default.aspx?tabindex=2&tabid=40#Deployment


Do your users ever VPN in to the network to access the intranet (if so, make
it low graphics, etc..)? Do your users travel so that an authenticated
website may be more useful to them?

Just make sure, I guess, that the WinForms app can handle all possible
connectivity scenarios that you may have...

 

[Yan-Hong Huang[MSFT]]

Hello Mike,

I was reviewing the post. Do you have any more concern on Jacob's reply? I
feel his reply is quite good. If there is any question, please feel free to
post here.

Thanks very much.

Best regards,
Yanhong Huang
Microsoft Community Support

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