I have a simple C# console application developed on my local machine using VS2008 Pro. I want to know how to deploy this solution onto a network share folder?
A similar Java console program is already placed (as a JAR file) in the same network share folder. Users simply open command prompt, navigate to shared folder and type "java -jar programName.jar inputParameter1 inputParameter2"
How can I achieve the same with .NET?
You can copy the exe over yourself, go to the bin folder in the directory your source code is in and copy it there.
or you can click the BUILD menu and use the PUBLISH menu item. This will allow you to enter the path to your network share and visual studio will copy the built app to the folder for you.
If your application is really "simple", you should be able to just copy the files to a shared folder and run it from there. However, if your "simple" application tries to do things that are restricted by the permissions you might have to configure them with caspol. Assemblies loaded from a shared drive have much fewer permissions than the ones loaded from a local drive.
It would be mostly the same process as the Java program. To deploy, compile the program and copy the exe from the bin folder (along with any dependencies) to the network share.
To run the program users would open the command prompt, navigate to shared folder, and type "programName.exe inputParameter1 inputParameter2"
You can use Publish feature of VS. Note that you can change settings in the Publish section of the console application project to remove some features that you don't need. For instance the renaming of .dll and .exe files by appending the '.deploy' extension to the name of the files or publishing in a new 'version' folder each time. Go to "Project Properties"->"Publish" and remove "Automatically increment revision" checkbox at "Publish Version", click "Options..." button and clear all checkboxes there too.
Right click your project, select publish which will make an executable, you can put that in your shared drive, similarly users can go into the command prompt and run it and give some args.
In the exact same way assuming they have the proper dependencies installed (.net, 3rd party assemblies, etc). copy the bin folder then have them execute the exe file.
Take a look at ClickOnce deployment:
ClickOnce is a Microsoft technology
for deploying Windows Forms or Windows
Presentation Foundation-based
software, also called Smart clients.
It is similar to Java Web Start for
the Java Platform.
MSDN
Wikipedia
Related
I want to publish a c# project. I want to know if I can use C:\Program Files as the UNC path Or I must add my PC name like C:\mypcname\folder
I want to make sure it can be installed from another computer system.
I think, you have a big misunderstanding here. First of all, if you include a computername, you need to write it in the form \computername.
But what do you have in mind? Publishing my project? When you publish or install a project, you will never ever use absolute pathes like "C:\Program Files", but instead you will use variable names for system folders. You may check for Environment specialfolder enumeration to get an idea.
And - you should have in mind, that EVERY installer available today will properly do that job for you. Have a look at Innosetup. Or, make that question more clear.
If you are using the publish dialog, then you are deploying using ClickOnce. If you are distributing it, then typically you would be using FTP to publish it to a web server or something - if you choose a location on your hard drive, then that is just where the files will be placed; you would need to copy those files onto a flash drive and take it from computer to computer to deploy it.
C:\mypcname\folder is not a valid file path, so that one is out. C:\Program Files is probably not a very good option. A folder under "My Documents" would probably be better.
Either way, the option you choose has nothing to do with where the project will wind up on your users' computers once they "install" it... ClickOnce actually puts everything into the hidden AppData folder under the Users folder of the user. If you want the application to wind up in C:\Program Files, then ClickOnce is not the deployment technique you are looking for. Look into something like InstallShield instead.
I have an app and my users need to right click on files they create > Open With > Choose Programs > MyApp.exe - but they can't because they cannot find it on their system. All they can find is a bunch of useless Shortcut files that open the program. But these shortcuts are completely useless.
I have handled the args to open files from explorer in my app (Program.cs etc) and have setup and signed manifest/certfile but they still cannot set my app as default app for specified file(s) or open files with my app from explorer. How do we get this to work with Clickonce apps? I've read the docs, and they haven't helped.
This feature has been introduced as of Framework 3.5
This is how you do it:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mwade/archive/2008/01/30/how-to-add-file-associations-to-a-clickonce-application.aspx
I had similar request on a project I was working on. ClickOnce apps are installed in a user profile vs Program Files folder. My alternative was using a different file extension for my "custom" files.
How to: Create File Associations For a ClickOnce Application
Hope that helps.
In visual basic class I learned where I could find the .exe file once the program was done and run at least once. Basically we could take the icon for the .exe file and place it on the desktop so that a user could just double click on the icon to run the program without needing to open the IDE or look at any code.
Where/how can i find this kind of file for c# code?
Go to the bin/Debug folder in the project. (or bin/Release if you're using the release build).
You can also go to your project settings, then to the build tab, and in the "Output" heading read/change the "Output Path" setting. This will let you output the exe to some other location, or just see where it is currently outputting in the event that it has already been changed on your machine.
Assuming you're using a web application project you'll use the .aspx file that is generated to access your silverlight application.
The "application" so to speak is actually a file ending in ".xap" that can be found in your web project's ClientBin directory.
The .xap file can also be found in the silvelright project's Bin
If you're wanting to install the silverlight application to a desktop you'll have to enable the ability to run the application "Out of Browser" and it'll have to be installed. More information on Out of Browser apps...
I've built against the release profile and this creates an executable build within the release directory in my project.
How do I best distribute to clients from this executable? There are a lot of files within this folder which don't appear when installed through the installer, such as the mainifest and one called application.exe.xml (which is confusing when Windows hides the extension in Windows Explorer).
Are these all necessary? Can I just send the executable? Or will I need to send with all the files? Is there a way to build without all these files?
You must send the EXE file and any DLL file that you reference locally. If you use COM references and the like, you need to register them during the installation. The same thing for the GAC I think, but I haven't used that for stand-alone applications myself.
The application.exe.config file contains the application settings (a copy of app.config). If you don't use settings or the user doesn't typically care about them, you can omit the file, and it will use the default values you built the application with.
The vshost files are not needed (if you have them). They are used by Visual Studio's debugger. The .pdb files contain debug data used to facilitate DLL file to source matching. Unless you plan on attaching a debugger to the application, there is no point sending those.
Usually, in an XCopy deployment you have to deploy (literally copy all files deployment with no setup/installer program) the content of the output folder (like debug or release) without:
*.pdb - debug symbols
*.xml - xml documentation
?vshost? - Visual Studio hosting files
In fact, it anyway also depends on your specific application. As a developer, you need to know what you are producing; in case you are using an xml file which is not the result of the .NET documentation compiler, but a static file copied in the output folder, then do not forget to deploy it.
A last note: developers usually disable the option to hide file extensions in Windows Explorer ;-)
You need to understand what an installer does or why an installer is important.
An installer takes care of the basic environment. The installer can carry dependent assemblies/modules along with the application. It can also check if you need something before you run, like .NET on the target machine. It can also create the shortcuts on the desktop or start menu. Plus it also provides adequate options on the target machine to uninstall it.
If you wish to ship the executable alone, you might miss out some assemblies that the executable depends on. The target machine may or may not have the correct .NET version installed.
Use the program: HM NIS EDIT from HM Soft.
Build your project
Run NIS EDIT
Make a new script from the wizard (Ctrl + W)
Run all the steps
Select all the .dll and .exe files
Build a setup file
I have a WPF project and a post build event which copy files from a folder outside of the solution into the output directory.
I want to publish my application with Clickonce publish. The only problem is that the copied files are not included in the publish or the manifest.
I tried using MageUI.exe , msbuild /target:publish from the visual studio cmd and even tried to change the project file by hand including a beforepublishevent but none of that worked.
I am open to suggestions, but what I want is to take the output folder and make the installer install the output files. (e.g. install the .net 4 framework and visual c++ runtime libs)
If you don't want them in the solution, but you do want them in ClickOnce then the only possibility is to use an external tool to create the ClickOnce manifests as you can't add non-project files to the ClickOnce output in Visual Studio.
There are two options I know of:
Use MageUI to manage your ClickOnce manifests. You can add additional files to your application in Mage.
You could use some software that I created and sell called ClickOnceMore (www.clickoncemore.net). ClickOnceMore will allow you to add all the files in one directory to your ClickOnce manifests by adding a single folder include. You can also then control which sub folder on the client they get deployed to. It was designed to make scenarios like this simple. You can download a free trial on the web site.
I hope it helps. Apologies for the marketing plug, but I do think ClickOnceMore can solve your problem perfectly.
Instead of copying the files through a post-build event, why don't you include them inside the project, and mark Copy to Output Directory = Copy if Newer?
If they are DLLs, you can add them as reference instead.
There are other options to create installers such as WiX+SharpSetup. It's much more flexible, but also more complicated, and takes more time to create simple installers.