Publish applications without installation.
by
k quinn
·
about 13 years ago
In reply to Publish c#.Net Windows Application
There’s no actual way to do what you’ve described using a standard deployment method. As mentioned previously, click once deployment can be used, but it still requires a local installation onto the client machine.
If you’re really interested in hosted Windows forms applications, Microsoft does offer a product that allows you to do this. It’s not actually a web server, it’s an application host that delivers the application over terminal services known and is known as App-V. It doesn’t save you any money in terms of licensing, and in fact it costs more per user than. What it does in terms of cost savings is reduce overall complexity of application delivery and system management in an enterprise situation and reduces the overall labor required to maintain a large user base.
Under app-v, you install a single instance of each application to the server, and you can do anything you want to it, including running updates or deploying customizations written internally. All those changes will be automatically delivered to all clients.
Some things to keep in mind about App-V:
You need the following licenses:
-Server 2003, 2008 or 2008 R2 license for each server
-Terminal Services CALs per user
-Inclusion of App-V for TS in the Windows Server 2008 RDS CAL / TS CAL, not
provided in the default TS CAL.
– A license for every user, for every software package you’re delivering, this includes non-MS software
(obviously if you or your company wrote the application, you don’t have to license it)
– A Windows XP/Vista/7 license for every workstation running as a client
The primary benefit of App-V is it allows you to have a single base image on the client, and never molest it by installing software, or retroactively having to install software or run updates after the initial image. All updates are automatically applied to the single instance running on the hosting server, so there’s no worrying about users locally altering update and software settings across an entire domain, or even an entire company.
This solution is ideal for all personnel except of development staff. Hosting a development application with App-V is a nightmare for reasons including local and remote debugging, server resources and execution permissions. Using App-V to deploy office, and other standard line of business applications however, is a dream.
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/appv/default.mspx