Is it possible to bundle my ASP.NET app into a self executable web app? (I know Java can)

Question

NOTE: I'm a veteran Java developer (10yrs) and have recently decided to make things interesting and jump over to the ASP.NET / C# world. Thus the question...

I have a business requirement to build an ASP.NET web application that can be installed into an "enterprise data center" for use by an entire organization or can be downloaded by a single user and run on their desktop (assuming WinXP or higher). Installing the web application into an enterprise environment is easy, but allowing single users to download a file, double-click, then access the application through their web browser is an entirely different story.

To solve the single user dilemma in Java, I would simply bundle the Jetty web app server into my application and configure the WAR file to start up the web server and run the web application when someone double clicks on it.

Is there any way within the .NET world to do something like this? Are there other .NET web app containers that I could bundle into my application? Would I need to create an Installer Wizard that would configure IIS on the users machine?

Any help is much appreciated.

Answer 1

probably the closest thing to what you're describing would be a WPF Browser Application.

What I personally would use is a ClickOnce installed winform or wpf application.

Answer 2

You can include the Cassini web server (free to distribute). This server is great for one or two users, but you wouldn't want to run your site on it.

http://www.ultidev.com/products/Cassini/

There's a side benefit to this .... you can include the code in your solution and set break points wherever you need them. If you're using SharpDevelop instead of Visual Studio set Cassini as the startup project.

EDIT : Just checked the site and I'm not sure if it's open source anymore. I may have used Reflector to generate code to set break-points.