Smart Client: RealWorld ClickOnce

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Smart Client Real-World ClickOnce

• Adam Cogan (AdamCogan_at_ssw.com.au)

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About Adam Cogan
Adam Cogan is the Chief Architect at SSW, a
Microsoft Certified Partner specializing in
Office and .NET Solutions.

• At SSW, Adam has been developing custom solutions
  for businesses across a range of industries such
  as Government, banking, insurance and
  manufacturing since 1990 for clients such as
  Microsoft, Quicken, and the Fisheries Research
  and Development Corporation.

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Agenda 1

• ClickOnce The best of both worlds
• ClickOnce History Feel the pain
• Demo SSW Diagnostics
• Scenario with Mr Northwind
• ClickOnce
• Prerequisites
• Deployment
• Update
• Security
• Demo Click Once application
• Advanced
• Test Pleasestaging Custom Rollouts
• Adding Custom Prerequisites
• Scalability
• Cache and Size
• Localization

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Agenda 2

• Bugs
• Proxy Servers on Client Machines
• Publish Version sync issues
• Warnings
• ClickOnce and non-IE Browsers
• File Patching and Rebuilds
• Manifest Overwriting
• File Compression
• Suggestions Missing Features
• Things to do now Moving your Application to
  ClickOnce
• Limitations Overview

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ClickOnceThe Best of both Worlds
Click Once
Windows Forms
Web Forms
Rich UserExperience
NetworkDependency
Tough ToDeploy
Easy To Update
Offline Capable
Tough To Update
Limited UserExperience
Easy To Deploy
High User Productivity
Easy To Manage
Fragile DLL Hell
Responsive Flexible
Complex To Develop
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History

• Remember the good old Windows Installer?
• Lets compare it to ClickOnce

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History Feel the pain Windows Installer vs
ClickOnce
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History Feel the pain.Net 1.x HREFing .EXEs

• The.NET Framework must be already installed
• Your application will run on the client as
  partially trusted code only.
• Bad performance as the executable will try to
  load several DLLs with localization resources
• No way to guarantee that all your files are
  indeed downloaded your client may be stuck with
  a "half updated" application.
• Only available offline if you are Working
  Offline
• Your application won't have a shortcut in the
  desktop or the Start menu.

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History Feel the painUpdater Application Block

• You must change your application substantially in
  order to use it
• It runs as a fully trusted local application, so
  it pretty much ignores code access security
• It's not supported by Microsoft.
• Since it uses BITS to download the application
  pieces, it does not run under Windows 98/ME.
• However, Jamie Cool has a work around .NET
  Application Updater Component http//www.windowsf
  orms.net/articles/appupdater.aspx

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Demo

• SSW Diagnostics install

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DemoScenario with Mr Northwind

• Mr Northwind wants
• SQL Server is an application prerequisite
• Users to be able to rollback to a previous
  version
• Only allow users to have 3 versions back
• Users have dial-ups, run updates in the
  background
• Publish to a unix machine via FTP

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ClickOnce DeploymentHow it works?

• Architecture based on two XML manifest
• files
• Application manifest
• Describes the application itself, assemblies, the
  dependencies and files that make up the
  application, the required permissions, and the
  location where updates will be available.
• Deployment manifest
• Describes how the application is deployed,
  including the location of the application
  manifest, and the version of the application that
  clients should run

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ClickOnce DeploymentStrategies

• Install from the Web or a Network Share
• (Default Strategy) (a Setup.exe)

Install from a CD (a Setup.exe)
Run the Application from the Web or a Network
Share (like a Link not really)
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ClickOnce DeploymentHow it works?

• Users download either
• 1. Setup.exe (500kb) checks pre-requisites
  (Recommended)
• 2. .Application manifest (small, does not check
  prerequisites)
• Q\ Which way?
• A\ Depends on pre-requisites
• Q\ What if the only pre-requisite is .NET 2?
• A\ Request.Browser.ClrVersion

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ClickOnce Deployment Prerequisites 

• Before installing an application on a client
  computer, ClickOnce will examine the client to
  ensure that it has certain requirements specified
  in the application manifest.
• These include
• The minimum required version of the CLR
• The minimum required version of the Windows OS
• The minimum version of any and all assemblies
  that must be preinstalled in the GAC

Note 1 If you specify an alternate prerequisite
location, the packages must exist there these
errors are not handled with ClickOnce Note 2
While selecting your prerequisites, keep in mind
that prerequisites might need administrator
privileges to be installed.
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ClickOnce Deployment Prerequisites 

• Missing prerequisites must be installed using
  separate redistributable packages.
• The deployment tools in Visual Studio let you
  install the .NET Framework and other
  redistributables as a part of your installation
  (bootstrapping).
• Note Prerequisites can be downloaded
• beforehand into a network location
• to avoid redundant prerequisite
• downloads on networks

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ClickOnce Deployment Strategies Compared
Eg. Pass the Registration
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ClickOnce DeploymentSetup Interface
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ClickOnce DeploymentSetup Options Interface
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ClickOnce UpdateHow it works? 

• ClickOnce uses the file version information
  specified in an application's deployment manifest
  to decide whether to update the application's
  files.
• After an update begins, ClickOnce uses a
  technique called file patching to avoid redundant
  downloading of application files.
• File patching (has it been changed?)
• Compares the hash signatures of the files
  specified in the application manifest for the
  current application against the signatures in the
  manifest for the new version.

Note 1 If you use Visual Studio to compile your
application, it will generate new hash signatures
for all files whenever you rebuild the entire
project. Note 2 File patching does not work for
files that are marked as data and stored in the
data directory C\Documents and
Settings\AdamCogan\Local Settings\Apps\2.0
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ClickOnce UpdateStrategies

• Checking for Updates after Application Startup

• background thread will run to locate and read the
  deployment manifest
• best for low-bandwidth network connections or for
  larger applications
• Specifying Update Intervals

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ClickOnce UpdateStrategies

• Checking for Updates before Application Startup

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ClickOnce UpdateStrategies

• Making Updates Required

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ClickOnce UpdateBlocking

• Want more control over the update?
• You may block update checking altogether and
  provide UI for updates using Deployment API in
  your application

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ClickOnce UpdateOptional and Required Updates

• For optional updates, the user can either accept
  or skip the update.

This dialog will not appear when an update is
required. To make an update required in Visual
Studio 2005, you need to set the Minimum Required
Version field in the Updates dialog box to match
the version of the application youre currently
publishing We recommend just 4 prior versions
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• Skull

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AdvancedRolling back updates

• The latest 2 versions of the application are
  stored, the rest are removed.
• Clients may restore 1 application update.

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ClickOnce Security
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ClickOnce SecurityPartial Trust Permission
Settings

• Custom Permission settings can be set for the
  following

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Demo

• Considering Mr Northwinds Scenario, we will
• Configure in VS.NET
• Install the application
• Update to a new version
• Rollback to a previous version MAN

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Test Please

• To do a test please, you must change
• Publication Versions
• Publication URL
• Installation URL (if changed)
• Updates URL (if changed)

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• SCREEN CAPTURE
• - FROG
• - www.ssw.com.au

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AdvancedStaging Custom Rollouts

• Other Options
• Option 2
• Use the System.Deployment APIs, you could build
  your own custom logic for determining when an
  application should update use the APIs to
  instruct ClickOnce to do an update at the
  appropriate time.
• Option 3
• Have server side logic that dynamically decides
  which version of an application a user should
  have returns an appropriate deployment manifest
  for that user user.

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AdvancedAdding Custom Prerequisites
SharePoint 2007 (Beta2) hopelessly shows this
message for its prerequisite Windows Workflow
Foundation Beta 2 We need to do better!

• To create your own package, you must have/create
• 1. redistributable component in the form of an
  EXE or MSI file
• 2. Product manifest, product.xml
• 3. Package manifest(s), package.xml
• All prerequisite packages are stored inProgram
  Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\sdk\v2.0\BootStrap
  per\Packages\
• Typical Directory Structure
• Reference http//blogs.msdn.com/harsh/archive/2006
  /05/31/611133.aspx

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AdvancedAdding Custom Prerequisites Product.xml

• Sample
• ltProductxmlns"http//schemas.microsoft.com/devel
  oper/2004/01/bootstrapperProductCode"SSW.NewPrer
  equisite.1.0"gt
• ltRelatedProductsgt
• ltDependsOnProduct Code"Microsoft.Net.Fram
  ework.2.0" /gt
• lt/RelatedProductsgt
• ltPackageFilesgt
• ltPackageFile NameSSWNewPrerequisiteChk.e
  xe"/gt
• lt/PackageFilesgt
• ltInstallChecksgt
• ltExternalCheck Property"SSWNewPrerequisit
  eInstalled" PackageFile"SSWNewPrerequisiteChk.exe
  "/gt
• lt/InstallChecksgt
• lt/Productgt

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AdvancedAdding Custom Prerequisites Product.xml

• ltProductgt
• ltRelatedProductsgt Lists products that depend
  upon or are included in the
  current product
• ltDependsOnProductgt Dependant products not
  included
• ltIncludesProductgt Dependant products included
  in this package
• ltPackageFilesgt
• ltPackageFilegt A file in the package. Specifies
  Name, Path, Remote location and public key
• ltInstallChecksgt
• ltAssemblyCheckgt Checks that an assembly exists
  in GAC
• ltExternalCheckgt Executes external program and
  check exit code
• ltFileCheckgt Checks file exists, and returns
  version number
• ltMsiProductCheckgt Check msi installation is
  complete
• ltRegistryCheckgt Check registry key value
• ltRegistryFileCheckgt check file version in
  registry

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AdvancedAdding Custom Prerequisites Package.xml

• ltPackagegt
• ltPackageFilesgt
• ltPackageFilegt A file in the package. Specifies
  Name, Path, Remote location and public key
• ltCommandsgt
• ltCommandgt Run/install a package.
• ltInstallConditionsgt Conditions for
  bypassing, installing and failing
• ltBypassIfgt
• ltInstallIfgt
• ltFailIfgt
• ltExitCodesgt Logic for response to exit
  codes
• ltStringsgt String array containing all possible
  string messages
• ltStringgt
• ltSchedulesgt
• ltSchedulegt Defines when certain commands are to
  run
• ltBuildListgt Execute immediately after
  bootstrapper starts
• ltBeforePackagegt Execute before the
  specified package is installed

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AdvancedScalability

• Server Processing is fineNormal activation of a
  ClickOnce application is very inexpensive for
  the server network
• Bandwidth is an issueConsider network bandwidth
  needed for initial application deployment
  application updates
• However, the standard methods techniques used
  to scale web or file servers can be used for
  ClickOnce applications (e.g server farms, etc)

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AdvancedCache

• Location for ClickOnce applications
• On XP userprofile\Local Settings\Apps
• On VISTA userprofile\AppData\Local\Apps
• Cache quota is 250MB.
• Data files do not count toward this limit
• Modify by changing Registry key
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Software\Micros
  oft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Deployment\OnlineAppQuo
  taInKB

Note The value in the OnlineAppQuoteInKB
registry key is a DWORD that expresses the cache
size in kilobytes
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AdvancedLocalization

• There are 3 ways to approach this
• Generate one deployment for each culture, with a
  single satellite assembly included in each.
• Drawback You must be careful to publish to a
  different Web server directory or file share
  directory each time
• Include all satellite assemblies in a single
  deployment.
• Benefit creates a single deployment
• Drawback Downloads all assemblies
• Download satellite assemblies on demand.
• Drawback must be online

But, what is a satellite Assembly? Its an An
assembly containing localized resources for
another assembly
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BUGSProxy Servers on Client Machines

• Issue
• Clients accessing the internet through proxy
  servers will get the error when launching the
  application
• The remote server returned an error (407) Proxy
  Authentication Required
• Default credentials to the proxy are not passed
  through, ClickOnce attempts to download the files
  without going through the proxy.
• Workaround
• A hot fix is available from Microsoft to replace
  the System.Deployment.dll or wait until the next
  service pack comes out for .Net 2. You must
  contact Microsoft for it.
• http//support.microsoft.com/kb/917952

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BUGS Publish Version sync issues

• Issue
• The problem is that (rarely) the publish revision
  number that Visual Studio has in memory sometime
  gets out of sync with the publish revision number
  that is stored is the user project file
  (.xxproj.user).
• Users would get the following
• Error 68 Publish failed with the following error
  Could not find a part of the path
• Workaround
• The easiest work around, which is to manually up
  the publish revision number and choose File -gt
  Save All.

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Warnings ClickOnce and non-IE Browsers

• Issue
• ClickOnce doesnt work on non-IE browsers (by
  default).
• ClickOnce provides IE with a mime handler
  interface for the mime type application/x-ms-appli
  cation which is associated with .application
  files on servers hosting ClickOnce application.
• So what happens in firefox?
• .application file is downloaded.
• If manifest contains relative paths, it will
  fall over.
• If it contains full paths, it will fail due to
  security checks (in place by ClickOnce team).
• Workaround
• Firefox There is an official Add-on
  https//addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1608/
• Non-Firefox ClickOnce helper is an attempted a
  solution, however it is not tested
  http//www.softwarepunk.com/cohelper/
• Note The ClickOnce team will fix this in the
  next release of the framework.

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Warnings File Patching and Rebuilds

• Issue
• The File Patching model for assemblies (even
  strong assemblies) is based entirely on file
  hash.
• Projects when rebuilt in VS often cause the same
  assemblies (exactly same source) to have
  different hashes. Hence if you are rebuilding
  your entire v2.0 solution its possible that
  assemblies that have not changed in terms of
  functionality will still have a different hash
  and hence be downloaded again by ClickOnce
  instead of being copied locally.
• Workaround
• Dont hit rebuild unless you need to! (when
  references mightve changed)

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WarningsManifest Overwriting

• Issue
• The manifest file for the ltAppNamegt.exe.manifest
  is overwritten, causes strange compile errors
  when included in the solution.
• Workaround
• You dont need the manifest file in .Net 2 for XP
  Styles. If you need it for any other reason, then
  merge your manifest into the one built with
  clickonce.
• Note If you are running SSW Code Auditor, this
  would not have been a problem ?

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Warnings File Compression

• Issue
• There are no file compression mechanisms in
  ClickOnce. By default, your file will be
  downloaded uncompressed across the
  network/internet.
• Workaround
• ClickOnce supports HTTP 1.1 compression. Simply
  enable this on your web server the files
  downloaded will be compressed.

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Suggestions Missing Features

• Rollback Feedback
• We want our clients to give us feedback as to why
  they are rolling back a version
• Rollback Count
• Clients should be able to rollback back to a
  certain number of versions (set by the developer)
• Version Download/Update/Rollback Stats
• What versions our clients are downloading,
  updating to and rolling back from. Presented in
  Reporting Services reports.
• Microsoft should release MSN messenger as a
  ClickOnce app.
• Staged Rollout
• Specify beta testers, and grouped downloads via
  authentication
• eg. MSN Messenger could let MVPs and RDs get the
  latest beta
• We want 10 released each day, to manage
  bandwidth and transition.
• Scalability
• limit to x concurrent - the rest would not be
  told of the new version until later.

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Moving your Application to ClickOnce

• You must consider
• What about your previous Windows Installer
  installation on the client machines?
• Suggestion Create a prerequisite that checks
  for and uninstalls the previous versions. (or in
  the start of your app)
• Where is your data stored? ClickOnce uses
  different App folders for each new version, for
  each user.
• Suggestion Use ApplicationData folder if the
  settings are per user, otherwise
  CommonApplicationData per application for all
  users.
• You must consider the Limitations

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Limitations Overview

• Installation of shared files, drivers, assemblies
  in GAC, for multiple users, office addins, etc
• Installation UI cannot be changed
• Add application to Startup group, Favorites menu
• Bootstrappers still need admin privileges if
  there are prerequisite redistributables
• Register file types
• No Updating via FTP

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References

• http//blogs.msdn.com/saurabh/archive/2006/03/02/5
  41988.aspx
• http//blogs.msdn.com/clickonce/
• http//blogs.msdn.com/saurabh/archive/2006/01/25/5
  17613.aspx
• http//blogs.msdn.com/winformsue/archive/category/
  11821.aspx
• http//www.softwarepunk.com/cohelper/
• http//msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/142dbbz4.
  aspx
• http//www.windowsforms.net/FAQs/default.aspx?Page
  ID3CategoryID24SubcategoryID27tabindex2
• http//forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?Pos
  tID615033SiteID1
• http//www.code-magazine.com/article.aspx?quickid
  0601041page3
• http//msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url
  /library/en-us/dnreal/html/realworld12012004.asp
• http//www.windowsforms.net/articles/appupdater.as
  px
• http//forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?Pos
  tID173747SiteID1
• http//support.microsoft.com/kb/917952

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2 things

• AdamCogan_at_ssw.com.au

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Thank You!