Deploying PDF-XChange based application using ClickOnce?

[ugradedeveloper]

My company has a .NET 2.0 application which currently uses Adobe Acrobat. I am hoping we can replace Acrobat with PDF-XChange Viewer SDK, once that product is a little more mature. Although active development has not begun yet, I am trying to figure out what our deployment strategy will be for the new version of our application.

The ideal solution, I think, would be to use Microsoft's 'ClickOnce' technology, as this makes it easy to deploy program updates to remote users, something that is currently tricky for us. The current version of our application does not use this, because ClickOnce applications run entirely in the profile of the logged-in user, and cannot invoke other applications (i.e. Acrobat). I am hoping that ClickOnce would work with the PDF-XChange SDK, however, since it is an ActiveX control and not a separate, stand-alone application. I wonder if anyone (either Tracker employees or other developers) has any information to share about the feasability of this.

Assuming that ClickOnce deployment would be feasible, I also need to know whether "Registration-Free COM" would work (this is described here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165432.aspx) This seems to be the easier way of deploying an application that uses ActiveX components; however it would require us to tighten our system requirements, as it does not work under Windows 2000 (which a few of our users are still running). If we are going to require some of our users to upgrade, I would like to give them as much advance warning as possible.

The afore-mentioned Microsoft article includes the following statement: "Registration-free COM supports only DLLs and COM controls project types. You cannot use EXEs with registration-free COM." Now, this would appear to exclude the PDF-XChange SDK, because both PDFXCview.exe and PDFXCviewAx.dll must be registered. Can someone at Tracker either confirm or deny this?

Thanks in advance to any who can offer information.

[John - Tracker Supp]

Hi,

Will investigate and come back with an answer in detail later today once we have had an opportunity to research a little.

thanks for your patience.

[ugradedeveloper]

I have been researching this a bit more, and it seems that the Bootstrapper (introduced with Visual Studio 2005, apparently) also offers a clean way of deploying applications with ActiveX components. This has the advantage of being compatible with Windows 2000 clients.

So, I would welcome information on how to deploy a ClickOnce application incorporating PDF-XChange Viewer SDK using either the Bootstrapper or COM-free registration.

Thanks again.

[John - Tracker Supp]

Hi,

I am afraid at this time it would appear our ActiveX product is not compatible with either of these products from the information available - our Viewer Ax is an EXE and we for now at least - converting to a DLL based Ax is not a possibility.

[ugradedeveloper]

Hi,

I am afraid at this time it would appear our ActiveX product is not compatible with either of these products from the information available - our Viewer Ax is an EXE and we for now at least - converting to a DLL based Ax is not a possibility.

Thank you for investigating this. Can I ask for a bit of clarification, though? By "either of these products" do you mean ClickOnce and Registration-Free COM? Or ClickOnce and the Bootstrapper? Or something else?

Thanks
Lewis

[Samy]

I have a question about deploying too, we have implemented your ActiveX PDF Viewer in one of our applications, and now we want to deploy it the easiest way!
The Exe must be installed on every client?Is there an easy way to install the exe automatically?Something like Wsus......?

[John - Tracker Supp]

The easiest way to deploy is using the client distribution file - this can be called/run silently

you can download this from here :

https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFXV_dev.zip

and from within your script or from a .BAT file - use the switch when calling /VerySilent

This designates that the installation once started should be silent and require no user interaction.

e.g. C:\PDFXV_dev.exe /VERYSILENT.

[Samy]

Ok thx, and how is the license key distributed to the client?

[John - Tracker Supp]

The license key/dev code is never distributed to the client - this is your developer code and is always embedded in your project code and compiled - never anywhere else
Please see the help files and examples for detailed info

[Samy]

The /VERYSILENT param is nice, but is there a way to install it without having admin rights? Otherwise a script is needed........

[John - Tracker Supp]

Just install the components as outlined in the Help file distribution list rather than using our installer - I assume that will achieve what you need - always assuming you are installing on the Simple DLL Viewer SDK only - if its the ActiveX - whether you use our installer or not -Admin rights are needed to register an ActiveX in Windows.

Hope that helps

[ugradedeveloper]

If you use "PDFXV_dev.exe /VERYSILENT" - does that take care of installing Gdiplus.dll on Windows 2000 systems? I don't have a copy of Win2000 to test with, but a few of my clients are running it.

Thanks
Lewis

[John - Tracker Supp]

Hi Lewis - it does indeed