ClickOnce update location - can it <sometimes> be local?

Question

Our ClickOnce deployment has been working great for dozens and dozens of updates - every install looks at the primary publish location, and gets the updates when needed.

We now have a new office that has many users and a very small Internet pipe, so they are hoping to download the update once and share it amongst the many users. Does anyone know if this is possible, and if so how I might go about doing that?

I hope to accomplish this without affecting the majority of users, and have experienced some pretty crazy things with expiring certificates, changing .NET framework etc. causing problems and forcing everyone to re-install.

Answer 1

As far as I'm aware it isn't possible to do it from a user perspective, but there are workarounds you can do from an admin perspective.

My first suggestion would be to find a server or fileshare that you can install the update files to remotely. You could use DNS to give the server the same name so that users appear to be accessing the same system.

Alternatively (though this idea will depend on how frequently you update your app) you could make it so that the app checks for updates after loading so that users can still work while the update is coming.

My final solution would be to set up a small proxy server that internet traffic will go to to cache the downloads.

Answer 2

It's not possible the way you are suggesting. Matthew is right, the only way to help them out is to deploy a version to a file share or webserver at their office. I can't speak for the DNS entry idea, because I thought a DNS entry could only point at one address. I think you would have to have two deployments.