Suitablity of .NET For Shareware Applications?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeremy
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J

Jeremy

I'm new to .Net. Specifically, I just started playing around with VB
..Net 2003.

I'm considering developing some shareware applications. Would you
consider .Net a suitable platform for this?

I know I can create my apps in VB.Net since I've already built some
prototypes, but the Framework issues concern me.

I understand you have to have the framework installed and that it can
be built in to your setup files to install if necessary, but the
security administration of assemblies seems really complex for the
average end-user.

I'd like someone to just be able to download and install my app
without having to go into the Framework Configuration Wizards to
authorize my application to be used.

I've looked through a number of books and other reference materials
and everything I see seems targeted at enterprise deployment. I'm
definitely a newbie with this so I may be missing something completely
obvious.

I'm anxious to get started on my development and I need to know if I'm
using the right development tools - any thoughts?

TIA,

-Jeremy
 
You shouldn't have any security issues as long as you don't 1) run the
exectuable over http, in essence launching it from http://yoursite/your.exe
and 2) don't run it from a network share. A straight local install shouldn't
require any extra steps. In an corporate network, things may be a little
different, but the average desktop shouldn't be a big deal.
 
Thanks for the feedback. Some of my forthcoming applications are for
small businesses (no sys admins) and it sounds like they could easily
run into security problems and create support problems for me. It
seems like there should be an easy way to overcome this issue. Or am
I barking up the wrong tree? I assumed VB.Net was to replace straight
VB - am I correct in this? Or is MS still keeping and updating
straight VB for developers that want to create more
general/retail/shareware applications?

-Jeremy
 
As best as I can tell, vb6 is the last generation of classic vb. With the
coming of Longhorn .NET code is expected to be a far easier thing to work
with.

The problem here is more secuirty than anything else. Security is starting
to become a prime concern on all fronts(even the small shareware developer),
and the .net framework security is a bit of a pain, but thats because in
vb6, etc, security was more or less non-existant. You have to exist in a
more secure runtime now. But as I said, every app I've distributed(across an
admitdly small set of machines) has worked fine as long as it wasn't
launched from a network share(in which case direct file access does not
work, although I think using OpenFileDialog and SaveFileDialog will). There
are a few things you will want to look out for, however. For one, do not
write ANYTHING to the install folder, on a secure windows system the program
files folder is read only to non-admins, all settings and data should go to
either an arbitrary folder or to one of the users folders(application data,
my documents, whatever). Try not to use unsafe code, although I've not had
any trouble with it, there could be a problem or two. Probably a few other
bits, but these are about all I can think of.
If you want your application to run off the network, you will probably have
to do some security work. I am not the best when it comes to security and I
think any further advice I give would be more of a liability than anything
else. Perhaps you should post to the microsoft.public.dotnet.security group
about this issue, there will be more security experts there. Although I
would phrase it as a security issue, not as a general shareware issue.
 
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