Is it possible to deploy an ASP.NET application as desktop application (with server component)

Question

Question: I created an ASP.NET web application.

Now it originally was meant for deployment on a webserver.
That is working, so, so far so good.

My question now is: Is it possible to deploy it as a desktop-application, too?

That is to say the installer installs some kind of server, plus the web application, configures the server to run this application on a localhost URL, and then creates a link in the start menu/desktop, where it opens that url (website, the application) on localhost in a web browser?

I think it should be possible, though the server wouldn't be IIS, because this is a windows component which can't be separately installed.

Is there anything like this already out there ? The nonplusultra would be that it only starts the server when you click on the shortcut.

Answer 1

You can use an easily installable ASP.Net webserver such as UltiDev Cassini.

Answer 2

I'm not sure, but you could use IIS express, when it will be released. Take a look to ScottGu's post Introducing IIS Express.

Answer 3

I think what you are looking for is something like Adobe Air: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Integrated_Runtime

However you want to be able to run ASP.NET, which Adobe Air does not. My suggestion is to use Silverlight

Answer 4

I almost went for Cassini.
But in the meantime, I found something better:

http://code.google.com/p/aspnetserve/

My mistake was searching for 'asp.net deployment server component' instead of 'asp.net embedded webserver'.

A really cool project.
Seems to work, at least for my needs.