I am a software developer and currently I am having requirement to develop such data management software for one retailer that doesn't require installation. Means client want software that should be pre installed in pen drive and while my client access that pen drive from any pc then he must be able to access whole software without any kind of cause or installation.
How could I develop such software? Is it possible to develop such software in .net (I am familiar with it)?
If the machines that you're working with already have the .NET framework installed that you required, then no problem. You can just run the .NET code from your pend drive.
However, if you can't guarantee that the .NET framework is already installed, .NET is not going to work in this scenario. A solution that comes to mind in that scenario is a bare bones Win32 C++ solution.
Yes, you just put the exe (and dll) files onto the pen drive. You don't need to build an installer.
This is not a problem at all, as long as you don't try to use the registry, or any local folders on the PC without expecting problems.
That's not an install.
An install is where you tell the operating system about the software.
.net out of the box is XCopy deploy. ie Build, open File manager click on the exe and it should just work.
So it you copy the build files to a clean machine, pen drive, cd, of just a foklder and it works, then job done.
No permanent registry, no appdata folders, no shortcuts.
Of course you can. For instance, if you develop a software that does require installation, and you want to ask a co worker to test the app for you, you could go into your debug folder (or release) and give him the .exe + eventually the DLLs. He will be able to run it without any problem.
Just remember to keep all save files, ressources and dll's in the same folder.
The only thing is, without an installer, you wont have access to all the features an installer has, such as checking for prerequisites, installing prerequisites, inserting keys into the registry etc ...
You will have to do without these "integrated" functionnalities
Related
I build a WPF solution and after compile, I got a exe file in the bin folder. I copied this exe file into a shared folder for a few users to use it. But some users will copy it to their own PC's c: drive to use.
Now I have a new version of the WPF solution. I copied the new version of exe file to replace the one in the shared folder. But I can't replace the ones in user's own PC. How can I make sure the old version exe tool doesn't work. And users have to use the new version?
How can I make sure the old version exe tool doesn't work. And users have to use the new version?
You can't unless you have written code in the application to ask some remote server for the last valid version number and shut it down if the current version doesn't matches this one.
What you really need is a better way to deploy your app. I would recommend you to look into using ClickOnce. It should be easy to learn and use and require no major changes to your source code.
Another slightly more advanced and sophisticated way technology to deploy your apps on Windows 10 would be to use MSIX.
i created an application using c# language. this application is doing a task like report generation.i am using that application exe file directly to run the application.i never installed that application in my system. without installation of that application, i can use it in my system.then why people are installing a software/application in systems.please clarify me. so that i can differentiate the MSI installation and direct use of exe file.
Install in cs jargon means guided setup, so what you do is already, basically, installing. Installing may involve much more complicated steps than simple copy/paste of bin directory or unzipping in some folder. installation process may contain the below processes:
Controlling user license
Registry key control
Database creation
Com components registration
....
and much more.
But the core concept remains the same: guided setup of all necessary components of your program to run it properly. So, if the only thing your program needs is a binaries folder, copy/paste is your install.
What you are doing is called an "xcopy" deployment. It was all the rage when .NET came out but it has serious limitations.
Windows Installer (MSI) is a windows platform service / SDK that aimed to create a declarative framework for consistent installer behavior. Simply put instead of learning how to write script to automate install/uninstall (and making a lot of mistakes along the way) you leverage MSI to tell it I have a product named X with feature Y that has these files Z in these directories along with a shortcut and some registry entries and let MSI do the rest for you.
I have .NET exe, I want to create a setup for this and after any login or restart this exe should be called automatically.
As you are deploying a .NET application, there are multiple ways in which you can approach this challenge.
There are many questions you have to consider when choosing an installer strategy. These include:
How do I plan to distribute this software?
Is the software supposed to be connected to the internet in any way?
What users is the software targeted towards?
Do these users have specific computer installations, such as all having .NET Framework already installed?
How should I approach the problem of updates to the software?
After answering some of these questions, you can get a general idea of how you should distribute the software. Then, you need to consider the various installers, and Wikipedia has a convenient list that compares them, which might help you.
Below are some examples of what might work for you:
ClickOnce deployment built into Visual Studio - my current favorite way, as this is the most easiest for users and for developers because updates and interaction is extremely simple
NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System), an open source scripting system for such installers. A great tutorial on packaging and checking for the .NET Framework with NSIS can be found here.
InstallShield (from Macrovision) - a heavily used installer system, but this one is not free, unlike other solutions
DreamShield - I haven't tried this one, but it appears to be a viable solution.
WiX (with Visual Studio plugin)
Deployment of applications is a very tough part of software development, especially in .NET, because how can we know, for example, whether the potential user already has the .NET Framework installed on their system or not? Or what version is installed? Thus, we must use tools like ClickOnce and NSIS to help.
To your question about how to start your application immediately at login, there are four ways to approach this:
Add registry key to start at login/bootup - MSDN explains that very well here. However, most installation systems allow you to automatically configure the registry key for bootup addition.
Use the Windows Task Scheduler to schedule a "task", in other words, to create a task that runs at startup. There is a .NET library for that here, I've used it in two of my applications that run on a specific schedule, it works great!
Adding the path to your executable into the Startup folder located at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup(that is for all users - for single users you can customize the username in that path). By the way, that location is in Windows XP, it may be different in other version of Windows.
If your application is a Windows Service, you can already automatically start at bootup, through svchost! There is a simple service configuration that will allow you to accomplish this.
Hope I helped!
You can use Inno Setup for the specific tasks described in the other answers.
By setup, I'm going to assume you mean the conventional installer. A good open source solution is NSIS. If that does not work, here is a more complete list.
As for having it start whenever the computer restarts/you login, that is platform specific (the installer can be platform specific if the program is). On windows, the installer needs to add a shortcut to your program in the folder
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
(that is the easy method, there are surely more complicated registry settings).
This blog post lists a few useful links to info about Setup and Deployment projects using Visual Studio.
You could also google with the keywords ".net deployment project".
Although not .NET specific, you can try InstallJammer. Its open source and multiplatform.
VS 2008 SP1
I have created a application that I have installed on the user computer. However, I want the application to be self-updating. But I am not sure if this would really update the application.
The application will download all the files from the web server, and replace the files in the directory where the program as been installed to. The user will restart the application.
I am just want to be sure, because I can't replace the installed files with the updated ones. As the application will be running. So really the application cannot delete/replace itself.
So, I was thinking that I could download into another directory, if the program is installed in this directory 'program files/application/1.0.0' then I could download the files to 'program files/application/1.0.1'.
However, when the program restarts, how can it know that it has to execute from the 1.0.1 directory?
I can't use clickonce or the updater block for this.
Many thanks for any advice,
A good option is to make an independant Updater application.
The updater will download the newest version and kill/replace the old.
I think this is the best option, because you can execute the updater within the main appication (so you can say that it´s self-updating), or directly by the user with a shortcut.
The updater can check if the application is running and ask the user to exit the application or kill it by itself.
Forgive my english...
Good luck
All of that is already done for you if you use ClickOnce deployment (Project properties, Publish).
You can wrap the application with a small loader program which will do a version check. If it's out of date, download the newer binaries and overwrite the old ones. If you want to maintain all version you might end up with:
c:\program files\mycompany\myapp\loader (the newer version will point to the latest directory)
c:\program files\mycompany\myapp\v1.0
c:\program files\mycompany\myapp\v1.1
If it's on a LAN, you might be able afford the bandwidth of just re-downloading the binaries on start up instead.
Use Windows Installer for the installation and updating. If you sign your installation packages the user can update your application without needing any administrator privileges.
I've made a website and an application that demonstrates the functionality of what you want on my website.
Wix Clickthrough might meet your needs: http://wix.sourceforge.net/clickthrough.html
I would look into ClickOnce. It can be configured multiple ways, to check for updates before the application runs, to download from the server each time it's run, or check for updates after the application has started.
I have done ClickOnce Deployment and an independent updating application, they both work well. You obviously will have more flexibility over an updating application that you create yourself, however tho, ClickOnce can also be configured to install prerequisites such as the .NET Framework, Windows Installer, etc... for your application to run.
How can I deploy a C# Visual Studio 2005 project so that I can run the application in another system? My project has a few dependencies and files that have to be integrated while deploying the project.
What is the best way to handle this?
You need to know what dependencies you have.
you need to have .Net framework installed
you have to explicitly install all dependencies that you used from the GAC on your target machine (some 3rd party components)
and then you just need to copy files from your \bin\Release folder
install all services, etc. if you have any
In the simplest cases only copying files should be enough.
Have you looked into ClickOnce deployment?
It's far from perfect, but for projects without a huge amount of overhead, it's generally good enough.
What kind of project?
Assuming it's a regular winforms application, just copy everything from either the obj\debug or obj\release directory to the new computer. Then run your executable
You can right click on the project file in visual studio and publish to a different location. This will build the site and copy it to the specified directory.
Also, if you need to do anything extra during the build, you can specify custom build actions on the build tab of the project's properties.
EDIT: now that I see you added that it's a windows application my answer doesn't matter. I'd try adding a setup and deployment project in visual studio to handle installing/deploying your windows application.
You more or less have three options (maybe 4?) as I see it.
Windows Installer
ClickOnce
Just distribute
the exe itself
In your particular case I would suggest ClickOnce as long as the project is not massive with too many dependencies.
For other alternatives.
The right answer depends on many criteria.
The simplest way to deploy is by copying files. Just put your .exe, the dependent .dll's, and the .config file in a directory and copy it onto the target machine. It's simple, but there are many restrictions to this approach:
It assumes that the target machine has the right version of the .NET framework installed
It assumes a certain technical competence on the part of the person installing the software.
The installation won't do basic things like create start menu items.
Publishing the program for ClickOnce deployment addresses a lot of these issues, but it's got its own set of limitations. I haven't used it much, so there are probably more than these, though these alone are pretty significant:
Programs are installed into the ClickOnce cache, not the Program Files directory.
If your program does anything outside of the ClickOnce sandbox, you have to deal with security elevation and code signing.
You can create a VS Setup and Deployment project and build an .msi file to install the program. The most obvious drawback to this is that it's complicated: .msi files can do many, many things, and the Setup and Deployment object model is complex, with documentation that is, let us say, fanciful. But there are things you can do with .msi installation that you can't readily do with other approaches, including (and certainly not limited to):
Cleanly uninstall the program through Add/Remove Programs.
Provide an actual UI for installation that lets the user decide where to put the program.
Support scripted installation via MSIEXEC.
Install components besides the program, e.g. databases, COM objects, etc.
Put components in the target machine's GAC.