Has ClickOnce been abandoned without MSFT telling any of its customers? There are a wealth of issues and suggestions on Connect, but I haven't been able to find any mention of what's new in the upcoming .NET 4.0 release. The ClickOnce blogdoesn't have any details, indeed it has been quieter than the grave lately - no posts whatsoever over the past 3.5 years!

They have not abandoned it. Just FYI, Microsoft uses ClickOnce to deploy all of their internal applications, like HR and so on. So it's not going anywhere. From what I can gather, one group handles the runtime, and another handles the tools, so nobody really owns it, if that makes any sense. I'm working on evangelizing it and have shared with my contact there how people feel about it, because you're not the first one to ask if it's been abandoned.

From what I've heard, most of the changes in .NET 4.0 are actually in VSTO. I've heard they are going to allow you to package more than one add-in project in a deployment package, and also allowing you to do some kind of after-removal coding, also only for VSTO applications. When I get more information, I will post it back here.

RobinDotNet

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Click here to visit my ClickOnce blog!

They have not abandoned it. Just FYI, Microsoft uses ClickOnce to deploy all of their internal applications, like HR and so on. So it's not going anywhere. From what I can gather, one group handles the runtime, and another handles the tools, so nobody really owns it, if that makes any sense. I'm working on evangelizing it and have shared with my contact there how people feel about it, because you're not the first one to ask if it's been abandoned.

From what I've heard, most of the changes in .NET 4.0 are actually in VSTO. I've heard they are going to allow you to package more than one add-in project in a deployment package, and also allowing you to do some kind of after-removal coding, also only for VSTO applications. When I get more information, I will post it back here.

RobinDotNet

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Click here to visit my ClickOnce blog!

Thanks for the info Robin, it's a reliefto hear that ClickOnce is actively in use at Microsoft, andhasn't been abandoned. Maybe if the ClickOnce team posted to their blog a bit more often, there wouldn't be somany worriedpeople out there thinking ClickOnce is no longer under development. That said, I'm glad at least you're still active andblogging on the subject.

Hopefully for the next version of .NET, the ClickOnce team could be a bit more reactive to userrequests/bugs on Connect, and it would also be nice if the team was a bitless reclusive :-)

Thanks,
Dan

Yes, I am evangelizing ClickOnce and actually have a contact in Microsoft that I can go to for help and provide feedback to.

Last week, I discovered a bug in VSTO deployment (It's in the Runtime 3.0 SP-1) that makes it a problem if you want to change the certificate for a VSTO deployment. They looked at it right away, and figured out the problem. It will be fixed in the next versino of VSTO (VS20101). So they ARE still fixing bugs.

Which reminds me, I did some testing with the "create desktop shortcut" checkbox last night, and it's very unreliable. Sounds like feedback time...

Also, they have just awarded me with an MVP award for my community work about ClickOnce deployment, so yes, they are still supporting it as a product. :-)

I'll report back when I find out what else is in .NET4.0...

RobinDotNet

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Click here to visit my ClickOnce blog!
Microsoft MVP