I've used ClickOnce a lot over the years, but I have run up against a lot of its limitations. What alternatives are there for web deployment?
So far the only one I've been able to turn up is ClickThrough, which is part of WiX now on the back burner. Are there others that have had success?
What limitations are you experiencing with ClickOnce? When I don't use ClickOnce, I use NSIS (though you could use most other installer languages/systems) to make a runnable, self-installing application.
That is, when you run the download it is running the application, and there aren't any setup questions. There is a menu option, or a frequent-use detector that allows for permanent installation.
The two hard issues are:
For settings files, I use a remote web service to hold states, etc.
If you need local registry settings (file associations, etc.) then you need to do a proper install, but this can be done silently when the user is working with the application for the first time.
Check this out http://simpldeploy.com It‘s similar to squirrel but integrated into VS like ClickOnce. And it has Dialogs (optional) like ClickOnce.
