While this is a noble concept, I think this is a severely crippled mechanism due to the security restrictions. Apps downloaded in this fashion have rights to practically nothing unless you manually override the security polices via Admin tools, which is not trivial <g>...

I've been playing around with Web executed apps and while it works it's just not an option for commercial products IMHO. It's just too limiting. It may work in Intranet environments where trust relations can be set to internal domains, but externally - I doubt it. I don't know where this fits - somewhere between ActiveDocs and standalone client app.

The same is true of browser hosted controls in IE.

I think ultimately it's still better to deploy apps as desktop installable local apps and then retrieve data from the Web as needed via Web Services, or HTTP etc. With .Net this process at least is more painless since most apps can be easily made self-contained in a single EXE. Updates can be handled the old fashioned way by automatically checking for updates and downloading and installing a new version. Most app updates requrie additional logic beyond simple installation anyway - database structure changes etc. that require that code runs.


+++ Rick --



>One idea for you to consider is "No-touch deployment". Here is an article that explains this concept and how to impliment this:
>
>http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/techinfo/articles/smartclient/default.asp
>
>Essentially, this process mirrors the browser-based application deployment approach. Using methods provided in the .NET Framework class libraries, an application can be written to download the assemblies it needs dynamically from a remote Web server. The first time a particular assembly is referenced, it is downloaded to the assembly download cache on the client computer and loaded for use. Going forward, if the assembly required is already on the client computer and the version on the Web server has not changed, the local copy will be loaded. If the version on the Web server has been updated, that new version will be downloaded and executed. Thus, updates are automatically propagated to the client, but the network is not flooded with redundant downloads.
>
>Note that assemblies are downloaded dynamically, only as they are referenced. This allows applications to load quickly—no 50-MB, half-hour installation process just to get started.
>
>
>
>>Hi, all...
>>
>>First, Happy Holidays to everybody.
>>
>>Second, a technical consultant made a suggestion to me yesterday that I'm having trouble researching...he described it as embedded Winform controls.
>>
>>We have a Web-based app using Web Services, but with a very feature-rich WinForms UI at the client end. We decided long ago that ASP.NET just wouldn't cut it for our UI.
>>
>>Recently, we started talking about ways to do 'automated' software updates anytime we makes changes/enhancements to the front-end UI. That's when our consultant brought up 'embedded Winform controls' in Internet Explorer.
>>
>>He stated that we'd lose very little of our interface by doing so, and told me he'd send me some Microsoft whitepapers in a week or so. I did some searches on MSDN on this topic, and found nothing.
>>
>>So has anyone heard of this, and does anyone have any Web references?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Kevin