User712543661 posted
Here is some relevant information on deplyment vis-a-vis many available options:
XCOPY deployment is appropriate to be used in certain specific simple deployment scenarios. With Self-described and self-contained components and applications there is no need for registry entries or dependencies. This facilitates to install
desktop applications on client machines using a remote web server.
XCopy only copies the files it doesn’t configure IIS directory settings. Copying does not automatically configure Internet Information Services (IIS) directory settings. Hence we have to configure the IIS properly for the project to be deployed to work properly.
Click-Once deployment is a strategy introduced with Microsoft .NET 2.0 that you can use to deploy an application to a file system, local web server, remote web site, or FTP site. ClickOnce - great platform if it fits your application.
Many .NET Frameworks based applications will fit pretty well as long as the application is mostly deployable via xCopy. Then, ClickOnce provides a nice deployment model, with automatic updates to clients, making deployment nearly as easy as updating
a web page. There's also better security integration, if you want to have your app run in less than a "full trust" environment. The essence of Click-Once is that you have an application on the client that can detect when updates are available and download
them, allowing you to configure your application to get updates securely and periodically over the internet. Click-Once provides you with lower costs and automated updates with no version conflicts! You can use the Click-Once deployment strategy to provide
hot updates to the application, downloading and installing only libraries that have changed. However, there may be situations when Click-Once does not work the way you expected. For example, if a client's browser's proxy server has already cached an older
version of the deployment file, that client might not get the updates as expected. Use HTTP content expiration to mitigate such issues.
Setup Projects/Windows Installer - Designed to be simple to use and works very well as long as what you are doing is supported by the projects. Handles registry, file associations, launch conditions, files, Global Assembly Cache, some
COM registration, and can install and create Web Sites. If you need to do something that is not supported by the setup projects, you find yourself quite blocked and limited.
You may also refer some useful links:
http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Article/38462/1954
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winformssetup/thread/2e2be6ee-cc11-4092-bbf8-f8a0191811c6
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ilQ5yVLHkXQC&pg=PA444&lpg=PA444&dq=Xcopy+Vs+Clickonce&source=bl&ots=6b1LiUiQSO&sig=QcCFykSjhJYcsfjU0F5xhYWkRjU&hl=en&ei=wz27Sp35NIeTsAbq35C8Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&q=&f=false
http://www.arunmicrosystems.netfirms.com/Deploy1.html
Hope this helps !
