We have built an ASP.NET application in 4.0 (we can change it to 3.5 if necessary) with a SQL Server database.
I am looking to create an installation package (exe or msi) so that I can provide this file to my clients and they can install it on all of their laptops. This asp.net application will be running on laptops that don't have access to the internet.
Some of these laptops have XP Home, Win 7 Home, and other windows operating systems and not all of them have IIS installed. Is there some sort of simple application that I can use to create an Installer application where it will install IIS or some other web server, SQL Express, and .NET framework 4.0. If these applications are installed already, then it shouldn't install it. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
You could accomplish this using a Setup Project in Visual Studio.
I know about Web Deployment Packages. See if that helps in some way.
Check this extensive list of useful links:
Overview Post for Web Deployment in VS 2010
My company (Comet Way) makes a product that is designed for this: http://www.neokernel.com. Our customers use it when they need to access web databases offline on laptops. It's an assembly that you can distribute with your product without requiring a separate install, it works on any machine with .NET (or Mono), and it implements a full featured secure web server that runs any website that IIS will run.
Hope this helps,
Damien
Related
I have written a website in Visual Studio using .Net Framework (4.7.2). (Note: it is not using .net Core)
It is an asp.net website that uses .aspx pages and uses a SQL Server Database on my laptop.
Is it possible to run this website on my Synology NAS and if so would it be able to connect to the database on my laptop (that is on the same network).
.Net framework app can only be run in Windows OS. But Synology is Linux based.
So if you want to run your app in Synology badly, you need to convert it to .Net Core app.
Here is my answer in another question explaining how to run .Net core app in Synology.
Publish Net Core Web API in NAS Synology
You need a full os running windows, and then you also need sql server installed, and you also need iis (internet services (the web server)) installed on that server.
So you need a windows os, and preferably a server based version of windows (such as windows server 2019).
Unless that server allows you to install and run windows software? Then no that will not work.
I consider to use ASP.NET for developing a real-time appication that will be shown on a browser (IE, FF, Chrome etc.).
I'm wondering what are the system requirements for the server side where the application will be deployed?
Do I have to use IIS or I'm free to choose any web server I want? If IIS only - does it part of any Windows installation (so users do not have to pay extra charge for that?)
Do I have to install .NET Framework?
anything else?
Thank you!
You don't have to use IIS, you could use Apache, nginx, or xsp, but doing so means you have to use mono which is an open source version of the .NET framework, it's a couple of versions behind the real thing, you can find out more info here: http://www.mono-project.com/ASP.NET
If you choose to use Windows/IIS, then IIS is a feature of Windows that can be installed free of charge. You will need to install the .NET framework in order to host an ASP.NET web application, like IIS, the .NET framework and ASP.NET are features of Windows Server 2008 and above that can be installed/uninstalled whenever you like, for free.
If I develop a website in asp.net using visual studio trial version & I have my existing domain which supports asp.net hosting. Do i need to purchase a license copy of .net framework or visual studio in order to lunch my website?
Nope. You already have everything you need to launch the site.
The .NET Runtime doesn't require you to purchase anything. If the hosting provider has it installed on the server and offers ASP.NET hosting...you're good to go on that front.
The trial version of Visual Studio also doesn't limit you in this sense. You could've written your ASP.NET code with Notepad and compiled with the .NET SDK that Microsoft distributes freely. It's all the same when it gets served up.
The .NET framework does not require you to buy a license - it is free to download and install, and chances are that your host already has it setup.
As for Visual Studio, it is a development environment - you do not need to install it on the web server.
Once you have developed your site, you can use the built in Visual Studio publishing in order to push the site to your host.
All you need to do is publish the site then configure the site in IIS.
I am looking for ASP.NET applications that I can deploy to my local server. Can anyone suggest a link for open source .NET applications or any book?
Any suggestion would be helpful.
Thanks
If you are using Visual Studio 08 or 10 then they have built in ASP.NET Application Templates which will get you started.
These include a basic website with a Home and About page, also a Login/Register page and all the code to handle the Login and Registration.
If you create one of these, then you can deploy it to a local server as long as you have the .net framework, IIS and various other bits installed.
EDITS
Go and download the Web Platform Installer. From here you can download various templates and up-to-date tools. I would upgrade from VS 05 to a newer version, maybe Visual Web Developer Express 2010 as this will give you more options.
I have a Windows application which contain a deployer.
Does the deployer itself contain a copy of the .NET framework?
Or do we have to explicitily install it?
When I check in the solution explorer, it shows the .NET framework under the deployer project under detected dependencies?
My Windows application connects to the Internet to validate for a registered user. Do I need to configure some port (or something like that) while I am installing it? Also how do I check which port my application uses to connect to the Internet?
Regarding #1, just as Xstahef said, you need to prerequisite the .NET framework.
You could put the .NET redistributable in your installer, and if you detect that the .NET runtime is not installed then prompt the user to run and install the .NET distributable contained in your installer (that's what we did some time ago, InstallShield provided this functionality for us). But this may not be recommendable: the .NET runtime has grown a lot in size (depending of the version you need to have in your client's machine), and many customers (at least the educated customers) won't trust installing the runtime from your installer. Besides, you may need to check with the legal department in your company before including a third-party component in your installation.
It depends on your deploy project (Visual Studio, InstallShield?). But commonly, you need to force the .NET installation (prerequisite option). By default, .NET is not contained in the deployment projects.
Here, it depends on the way you want to connect the Internet.
.NET runs in a VM, so you would need to require the framework be installed in order to actually run it. Much like you need to have Flash or Java for those respective mediums. Microsoft has redistributable packages for the .NET framework. So you could probably incorporate them into your installer. If you're targeting 1.1 or 2.0 most people probably won't need it.
So long as you are not trying to get in to the client machine then you shouldn't need anything special like UPnP to [attempt to] open a port if they are behind a NAT router.
Xenocode does allow to running such an application on an absolutely clean PC.