How ClickOnce deployment works?

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Overview
· ClickOnce is a deployment mechanism of the .NET framework application.
· It allows automatic update and deployment from the server side.
· For deployment of the application we need to publish it on the deployment server and provide the link to the system users.
· When users run the application through the given link, the application will be automatically deployed and stored in client computer and it runs.
Deployment Modes
There are two deployment modes of ClickOnce.
1-Installed
2-Online
Installed = In the installed mode the application is still available even though the client machine is in offline mode. The application can be launch through the programs section in the start menu.
Online = In online mode the application will be run through the URL of the deployment server. In this case client machine must be connected to the deployment sever.

ClickOnce runtime is used for automatic updates on client machine.

ClickOnce Deployment Architecture is as below
- First user has to publish the application through the ClickOnce deployment which will generate deployment manifest and application manifest.
- Deployment manifest =It has information related to publication like deployment server URL, the update policy and references of the application manifest etc.
- Application manifest = It has list of application files which are needs to be deployed on client machine.