Hi all of you,

We have a VFP standalone application that works quite well. We have run an encapsulation process in order to make sure that the installation is "standalone" (zero-dll - the original exe, vfp, all sorts of dlls including gdiplus, ocx-s and more more are consolidated into a single exe). This relatively fat win32 exe (20 mb) is "portable" i-e it requires neither admin rights and nor any formal installation (a copy will do). This has proved to work quite well in complex circles. In most cases with zero involvement of IT.

We now have an additional issue though. Some of our contacts - headoffice staff - want to use the stuff in a highly regulated environment (banking...).

I expect we have to move to the next step. Which is "code signing". Since I have zero experience with this. Not even a copy "SignTool.exe" on my workstations - I expect it has to be downloaded from an MS-site ? -, may I ask a few questions to those who have it through it all :

1) I understand you can purchase "Extended Validation" EV or basic ones: would EV make a real difference in terms of customer acceptance, anti-virus screening and/or firewall behavior !

2) looks like Comodo is a major source for certificates: would you recommed it? Or would you suggest alternative providers. Pricing is not the most serious concern here. We are a small and new shop (but a shop!) with very limited public exposure and, among others, I wonder if the EV "Extended Validation" process can be run smoothly by, say a US provider, for a French shop?

3) I'm absolutely no techie on the subject. Building an "executable" from a VFP exe via defox + molebox was really an achievement here. Can I expect to run this authentication process within a reasonable timeframe ?

Any feedback on this issue is welcome !

Thanks for you time and have a good week-end:-)

Daniel