.NET ClickOnce and Vista start-up

Question

We have some software we use internally which is released via ClickOnce from VS 2008.

The app needs to run on everyones computer all the time so the obvious solution is to have it in the Start Up folder of their start menu. This works fine on XP machines. But, as was inevitable, people are moving to Vista. Now we're hitting a problem where people who have Vista no longer have the application run on start up.

From what it looks like the problem is caused by the fact that the application isn't digitally signed, unlike other programs in the Start Up.

Do I need to have the app digitally signed? If so how do I go about this?

Answer 1

Life in vista is easier when you have your code signed. you can get a code signing cert from verisign or godaddy. Once you have that you can run signtool in the windows sdk

Answer 2

If you buy a certificate, here's a great article on how to create the files you will need to sign your assemblies.

Also, you don't have to purchase a cert. You can create a self-signed certificate as well. The biggest "downside" to this is that your app's publisher will appear as "Unknown". Not great for a commercial product but probably just fine for an internal app.

Answer 3

You do need a certificate but there is no need to go to Verisign or any other outside vendor if you are just doing it for your own company.

From within Visual Studio you can create a certificate yourself and add a bootstrap to your ClickOnce application to allow the clients to accept it as a cert from a Trusted Publisher.

MSDN has an excellent article on this whole process.

Answer 4

Please see dipeshavlani.blogspot.com for a working approach.