Creating a standalone ASP.NET MVC application for Windows XP

Question

Is there a way to create an installable (ideally XCopy installable) version of an ASP.NET MVC application that will run in a standalone fashion on a Windows XP machine?

I don't mind installing SQL Server Express for this purpose, so I guess the question boils down to this: Can the Cassini web server that comes with Visual Studio 2008 be bundled with the application? Or are there other options?

NOTE: The installation is for demo purposes only, so there are no licensing problems. Also, I am suggesting Cassini because I don't know of a way to install IIS7 on Windows XP. I can't do major hackage on the registry to get this to work.

Answer 1

Not sure if it'll help, but you could definitely check out the UltiDev Cassini Web Server, which can be bundled with your app and should support what you need.

Answer 2

I think this is a bit old, but check out http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc188791.aspx.

Also, the ComponentArt demos run on Cassini.

Answer 3

You can package, embed, bend fold and spindle CassiniDev with my blessings.

I have been told that it suits this purpose admirably.

Answer 4

My company makes a product for this purpose called the Neokernel Web Server which includes several features that are missing from cassini like SSL support, logging, multi-threaded request processing, and the ability to start/stop/configure the server from your own process.

A free 30 day evaluation license is available for testing and evaluation purposes.

http://www.neokernel.com