Microsoft ClickOnce deployments

[Rene]

I would like to use InstallAware to create a Microsoft ClickOnce setup program.

As far as I understand, creating a ClickOnce installation program should pretty much be identical as trying to create a standard installation except that instead of having the startup menu shortcut pointing to an application exe, it will point to the web file (http://www.MyWebSite/SomeProgram.Application).

Once the installation has taken place, there should be no need to do any patching whatsoever since the ClickOnce technology will take care of all that (I think), the only option that should be available is to remove the application.

Now for the actual question, has InstallAware done any research or published any information regarding the compatibility of IA setup programs and ClickOnce? Can ClickOnce setup programs be safely created with IA? Are there any templates for this type of installations?

The reason why I am asking is because I am not sure if what I am assuming is correct and I hate to bump into a nasty surprised after I have distributed my setup programs.

[MichaelNesmith]

ClickOnce is not an installation technology. It is a sandboxed execution environment for .NET applications. For ClickOnce to work, .NET 2.0 must already be installed on the target machine.

InstallAware does not create ClickOnce packages (which can be easily created within the Visual Studio environment), but Windows Installer (MSI) packages.

[Rene]

For ClickOnce to work, .NET 2.0 must already be installed on the target machine.

Exactly, and that is one of the reason why I would like to use IA.

What I would like to do with IA is to create a setup program that installs everything that the client computer needs to install in order for my program to work, this includes things such as .Net 2, SQL express etc.

Once that is done, the real question begins. In order for ClickOnce to do its thing, I would have to somehow include the ClickOnce package inside my IA setup file. Then, in order to run the ClickOnce package, I guess I would have to extract the package to some folder and then call the “MyProgram.Application” file so that the ClickOnce process can begin.

If I am able to do this with IA then I could distribute a *single* easy to use setup file to distribute my initial ClickOnce deployment. If I rely on Visual Studio to create my setup package, I would have to distribute multiple files including the bootstrap setup exe that requires Internet access to download the .Net framework, even worst, if there is no Internet access the user gets a cheese error message.

There are also other issues here, with the standard ClickOnce installation, we have no say on how the startup menu shortcuts will be, for example, I would like to add a shortcut that point to an online help file but I can’t do that with the standard ClickOnce setup.

[Gizm0]

Why this obsession to use ClickOnce?With IA you can do much better and far more things, than ClickOnce.You can simply create a package that only installs the Prerequisites of your application and then simply launch the ClickOnce deployment by using Run Program , or Download File commands of IA.

But, i would advice you not to do so.With IA you can do it all in one, than using ClickOnce.It even has it's own update mechanism (IA).

[Rene]

mmmmm… very interesting, I am going to have to take a look at this IA features, to be honest I rally haven’t played around with them.

I have IA version 5 (the previous version), I don’t know if this old version has all these features. I hope it does because the software that I am crating and distributing it’s free at this time and without any money I can’t afford the price of the IA upgrade at this time….... damn it!

Thanks.

[Gizm0]

mmmmm… very interesting, I am going to have to take a look at this IA features, to be honest I rally haven’t played around with them.

I have IA version 5 (the previous version), I don’t know if this old version has all these features. I hope it does because the software that I am crating and distributing it’s free at this time and without any money I can’t afford the price of the IA upgrade at this time….... damn it!

Thanks.

As far as i know, version 5 supports most of these features and prerequisites installations.