Multimedia and MSDN Webcasts

• MSDN Webcast: Customizing Deployment Using the ClickOnce API
  The new ClickOnce technology in Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 allows a tremendous degree of flexibility in deployment and versioning options, beyond what is automatically driven by the wizard. See how the ClickOnce API gives you in-depth control over the behavior of your application.
• MSDN Webcast: Deploying Applications Using ClickOnce
  Are your application development projects hampered by DLL (dynamic-link library) issues? Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 offers ClickOnce Deployment that ends the well-known problems DLL can cause. Register for this webcast and see how Visual Basic 2005 provides automated support for deploying and versioning your application.
• MSDN Webcast: Smart Client Deployment with Windows Forms
  Smart client applications run outside of the browser. They provide users with an adaptive and rich interactive experience by taking advantage of Microsoft Windows operating system resources and intelligently connecting to distributed data sources. Smart client applications are often challenging to deploy, and to maintain, across thousands of workstations. This webcast examines smart client issues and capabilities and outlines different approaches and techniques that can simplify the deployment and maintenance of your smart client applications.
• MSDN Webcast: Smart Client Development Overview
  Find out about Microsoft's vision for the future of smart client application development. This webcast defines smart clients, provides an overview of the Microsoft smart client technologies, and highlights the implications and opportunities for smart client application development. Learn about smart client benefits and look at the tools and technologies you can use to build smart client applications. We examine the smart client capabilities of both the current and upcoming versions of Microsoft Visual Studio and the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework.

Technical Articles

• Automatic Updating of Visual Basic 6 Applications: Part I
  

  See how you can add automatic updating functionality to your existing Visual Basic 6.0 applications, using features now available with the .NET Framework 2.0.

• Automatic Updating of Visual Basic 6 Applications: Part II
  

  See how to automatically update Visual Basic 6.0 applications and COM objects, using the .NET Framework 2.0 and ClickOnce deployment.

• Choosing Between ClickOnce and Windows Installer
  Michael Sanford takes an in-depth look at the .NET Framework 2.0 ClickOnce technology and compares it with the existing Windows Installer technology. Michael concludes by making some recommendations on when to use each technology.
• Deploy Windows Forms Applications with ClickOnce
  Examine the ClickOnce technology, compare it to other deployment technologies, and learn how you can use it in your applications.
• How to Configure ClickOnce Trusted Publishers
  Take advantage of Code Access Security runtime protections while still allowing a dynamic determination of permissions at the point of application deployment through ClickOnce.
• Simplify App Deployment with ClickOnce and Registration-Free COM
  DLL Hell that results from versioning conflicts is generally not a problem in .NET because components do not require registration, and are either totally isolated to an application or are managed in a well-defined side-by-side way with the help of the Global Assembly Cache. But if you're still using COM, wouldn't it be great if you could deploy your existing COM components using a model similar to the .NET Framework? In Windows XP, you can, and this article explains how.

Virtual Labs

• Visual Studio 2005 Click Once Deployment
  In this hands-on lab, you will learn the basics of ClickOnce including rolling back bad upgrades, examining application and deployment manifests, and adding an "Upgrade Now" menu item to your application.