On 6/1/2017 5:10 PM, Andrew Stirling wrote:
Care to enlarge on this please. " Simple file shares (dare I say even "sharepoint"?) make rich client distribution fall-off-a-log easy and secure. "
The basic principle is: - create a "startup" application that checks a "file share" for updates and downloads them (all kinds of ways to do this - I myself never relied on "file timestamps") - the "file share" can be anything: FTP site, even using HTTP, and Sharepoint can be used because you can access files via http links there (although it is a MS product so gotta be careful :) ) - the main app also checks the file share for updates to the "startup" app and downloads as necessary (can't overwrite an .exe in use... well, not easily anyway)
From there you can add all kinds of security checking of the .exe content, etc, to ensure someone did not compromise the file share. And in one very paranoid case, we had a "secret sever" monitoring the "visible/published" file share, comparing it to it's own version - and if something was out of sync, log it, and copy over it from the "secret server". But really, if someone hacked the enterprise network deep enough to copy files around, figuring out where and what .exe to substitute is probably not even a thought.
Using this approach I also added a little logic inside the .exe to detect the operating system version and existence of other resources (one program actually used MS Powerpoint via Automation - to my chagrin... but that's what they wanted). I believe at one time I had an application running on desktops with Windows 98, XP, Vista (which was a pain in the a....), 7, all at the same time.
Compared to browser incompatibilities, bizarre rendering that experts could not figure out, security snafus, and did I mention pathetic performance.... desktop application distribution was a dream.
-Charlie