ClickOnce Deployment of application to multiple destinations

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James Wong - 05 Jun 2008 09:46 GMT

Hi all,

I'm using VB2005 and I'm studying the possibility to apply ClickOnce
deployment instead of traditional *.msi. In a simple testing environment, I
can make the deployment successfully. However, the real world is a little
bit complicated.

First, there are more than one server I need to publish (in fact, one server
for each company and they are in different countries). Second, I can't
publish to the servers directly. So I need to publish to a local folder
first, then send the deployment files to different servers and copy to target
folders.

In VB2005 IDE, under Publish tab, I need to fill installed URL if I do not
publish directly to IIS. However, since the actual URLs are different from
company to company, I need to change it before I publish to my local folder.
I've to repeat it again and again for each target client. It's too time
consuming and easy to get wrong. Moreover, I've to save the deployment files
separately in my local folder for each company.

What I thiink is I'm using a stupid way to do that and is looking for a
better method to make it practical. I expect there is some "profile" like to
store multiple publish details.

One more question I want to ask: when the client get the deployment files,
is it correct procedure just copy everything to the target folder (e.g.
C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\myapp)? Or there is other standard way to do it.

Thanks for your attention and kindly advice!

Regards,
James Wong

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Jan Hyde (VB MVP) - 05 Jun 2008 16:12 GMT

James Wong <cphk_msdn2@nospam.nospam>'s wild thoughts were
released on Thu, 5 Jun 2008 01:46:00 -0700 bearing the
following fruit:

>Hi all,
>
>I'm using VB2005

Again, 'dotnet' group, go.

>and I'm studying the possibility to apply ClickOnce
>deployment instead of traditional *.msi. In a simple testing environment, I
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
>Regards,
>James Wong

--
Jan Hyde

https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Jan.Hyde

Reply to this Message

Linda Liu[MSFT] - 06 Jun 2008 09:36 GMT

Hi James,

Thank you for posting!

I noticed that you post a same issue in the microsoft.public.vsnet.general
newsgroup. I have replied to that thread and if you have any question about
this particular issue, please reply to that thread and I will follow up
with you in time.

Since ClickOnce related issues belongs to WinForm field, you may post this
kinds of issues in the microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.windowsforms
newsgroup in the futhure.

For your convenience, I include my reply to that thread here:

========================================================================
Since you couldn't publish the ClickOnce application to the servers
directly, you may publish the application to a local folder and then copy
the deployement files to the servers.

In the "Publish" tab of the Project Designer, you may type "d:\publish
folder" in the "Publish Location" textbox and leave "Installation URL"
textbox blank because you don't know where the deployment files will be
copied and installed at this time.

After publishing the application, you copy all the files under the
"d:\publish folder" to the servers, e.g. c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\myapp and you
can type the following url in IE to install the application:
http://servername/myapp/publish.htm

For more information on how to publish ClickOnce applications, please refer
to the following MSDN document:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/748fh114(VS.80).aspx
=========================================================================

Thank you for using our MSDN Managed Newsgroup Support Service!

Sincerely,
Linda Liu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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Reply to this Message

Colin N. - 26 Aug 2008 07:31 GMT

Hi Linda,

I am trying to run the publish mechanism using a NAnt script. Like James, I
am trying to deploy to multiple servers. The following is my NAnt script:

<msbuild
project="C:\Data\TFS\Trunk\OPS\VB.NET\TradeFlowConsole\TradeFlowConsole\TradeFlowConsole.vbproj">
<arg value="/t:publish"/>
<arg value="/property:ApplicationVersion=1.0.0.11" />
<arg value="/property:BootstrapperEnabled=true" />
<arg value="/property:GenerateManifests=true" />
<arg
value="/property:PublishDir=\\ORBCAFS01\Users\C.Ng\Development\DeployTradeFlow\" />
<arg
value="/property:UpdateDir=\\ORBCAFS01\Users\C.Ng\Development\DeployTradeFlow\" />
<arg value="/property:UpdateEnabled=true" />
<arg value="/property:UpdateMode=foreground" />
<arg value="/property:UpdateInterval=10" />
<arg value="/property:UpdateIntervalUnits=seconds" />
</msbuild>

The problem I am encountering is that I would like the "UpdateDir" and the
"PublishDir" to be variable, meaning that my build script can change them
depending on the server i would like to deploy to. However, this is not
possible because the paths specified in this build script do not match the
path that is specified in the .vbproj file. Without changing the path in the
.vbproj file, what would you recommend I do to be able to deploy to multiple
servers using my build script?

Thanks.
Colin.

> Hi James,
>
[quoted text clipped - 61 lines]
> ==================================================
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

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VB Forum / Deployment / August 2008

ClickOnce Deployment of application to multiple destinations