Programming .NET Windows Applications

Deployment

You can install ayour application on end users' machines in many different ways, depending on the requirements of the user base, the supporting organization (which might be you), and the infrastructure in place. The .NET Framework offers a range of deployment options, ranging from traditional installation programs, which must be physically run on every end user machine, to on-demand installations over the wire—either LAN or WAN.

Of all the improvements offered by the .NET Framework over previous technologies such as COM and DCOM, deployment is near the top of the list for many developers. If the application does not require any shared assemblies, you need only to copy all files to a specific directory structure. There is no interaction with the Registry. Whether the assemblies are shared or not, versioning problems have been mostly eliminated, relegating DLL Hell to the unpleasant past.

In addition to these improvements over traditional deployment methods, .NET Windows Forms applications can be deployed over the wire, via a URL in a browser or as a link—in an email message, on a web page, or in a shortcut on the desktop. Doing so automatically brings the most current version of any required assemblies onto the end user's machine (as long as that machine has a connection to the Internet). This model offers all the functional benefits of Windows Forms (especially when compared to HTML based browser applications), along with an ease of deployment that rivals traditional web ...