ClickOnce makes it easy to deploy WinForms applications. But while it has some versioning support, it has no built in way to deliver different versions to different people. This makes partial rollouts to a test audience difficult. David Cooksey shows how to fine grained versioning to a ClickOnce deployment using an HttpHandler written with ASP.NET.
ClickOnce, part of version .NET 2.0, allows the deployment of Windows-based rich client apps by placing the app files on a Web or file server and providing the user with a link. This session covers VS 2005 deployment capabilities for online and offline support, rolling back to previous versions of an app, listing an app in the Start Menu and control panel, and zone-based debugging.
The beta for Service Pack 1 of .NET 3.5/VS 2008 brings with is a host of new features and libraries including the ADO.NET Entity Framework and Data Services, a client-only version of the Framework, and changes to most of the 3.0 and 3.5 libraries. Despite its name, to many developers this release is as significant as 3.5 itself.
Scott Guthrie recently outlined some of the changes developers can expect when building .NET 3.5 Windows Client applications. These changes will be released over the next few months.
With .NET 3.5, it is now possible to associate up to eight file types with a ClickOnce application.
Firefox now supports ClickOnce deployment for .NET applications via an add-on by James Dobson.
ClickOnce Publishing is one of the best ways to distribute rich client applications based on the .NET framework. But there are some limitations in IIS 7 that cause it to break. Brian Noyes explains how to work around these limitations.
