Dot net application to run on network drive without installation

Question

I have a vb script that modify file in user folder i would like to change it to .net appliation The problem is that the appliation must run on a network drive.

how can i deploy the application on a network drive, is it possible after creating the exe file installing it locally then copy all folder to a network drive, will this work?

maybe there is a project settings to allow creating exe without installation process?

i hope i made my self clear.

Thanks

Answer 1

the short answer is Yes, theoretically it should work, but in practice it is not so easy to do, you can meet some difficulties with trusted zone like described here which is canceled for .net4

Also I met this bug while working on such kind of problem

Answer 2

I think it would be better for you to use a ClickOnce setup, cause like that all your clients will also be automatically be updated when you have a newer version

Answer 3

You can but you need: Have all the machine in your intranet with the correct .NET framework installed, and have your network location "trusted" on each machine by:

Control Panel->Administrative Tools->.NET Framework Configuration ?.?->Runtime Security Policy->Adjust Zone Security

Answer 4

My favourite approach is via group policies.

First you need to ensure your application can run across different OS. Spoon Virtual Application Studio is a perfect solution for this and can even generate an MSI so you can just set group policy options and deploy.

Alternatively, you can convert your script yourself to an exe and then to MSI, there are many programs available for this, eg VB2EXE, and you can also write one yourself with C++ if you need the app to have more features, you just need to call your vbscript in the app or even embed it in the app if you don't want people to see the script. And then you can use a free exe to msi converter to finish the job.

You can find a good article on how to deploy your app using group policies here.