Deployment Strategy

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joe Audette
  • Start date Start date
J

Joe Audette

I'm trying to come up with a deployment strategy for a
series of products and would appreciate any advice.

Scenario:
My product line consists of a UI
Product.exe
an engine
ProductEngine.dll
and the actual individual products
product1.dll
product2.dll
and so on.

Product.exe and each individual productx.dll have a
dependency on ProductEngine.dll. Although Product.exe
consumes each productx.dll it has no dependency on any of
them and they have no dependency on Product.exe.

When a user installs any product I want the installer to
only install Product.exe and ProductEngine.dll if they
are newer than the version on the device or no version
exists on the device.

Questions:
Can I/should I use merge modules for the Product.exe and
ProductEngine.dll?

Should I include the compact framework in my installation
or make the user download and install it separately?

Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

Joe Audette
 
Questions:
Can I/should I use merge modules for the Product.exe and
ProductEngine.dll?

Should I include the compact framework in my installation
or make the user download and install it separately?
Click to expand...
<SNIP>

I would definately include the .NET CF in at least one
install. What you could do is supply an install with
the .NET CF and an install without it and let the user
decide (but this really depends on the level of expertise
of your end-users).

As far as the Product.exe and the DLL, I think its fine to
deploy them as-is. This can make patching easier and less
intrusive (since you can potentially patch only the
necessary file).

~~K
 
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