Clickonce, file associations

I've deployed, successfully, several Clickonce applications.

The problem I have is the negative reaction to my software when a user
attempts to open a file and no association exists between the file and the
application.

Now I understand the technical’s of why it currently isn't possible to do
this 'out of the box' with Clickonce, and I don't like the con's associated
with creating the association programmatically. But my reality is: no matter
how easy an application is to install or update for a customer, if that
customer can't click on a file attachment and have my application launch with
the file opened the application is 'difficult' to use.

Management currently is supporting the Clickonce deployment model and would
like to stay with it. We believe however that Clickonce would be a complete
solution for us with the incorporation of file association functionality.

So the question becomes: is there a roadmap within, or around, Microsoft
that outlines a schedule of an attempt to add this functionality to Clickonce?

--
Kenneth Lemieux
Project Engineer
Whelen Engineering Co., Inc.

RE: Clickonce, file associations

Hi Kenneth,

I understand your concern.

In fact, since the release of the VS2005 RTM, our ClickOnce team has
received many requests to provide some mechanism to enable shell file
associations. We intend to address this issue by adding support for shell
file associations in ClickOnce in the WinFx3.5 release of the .Net runtime.

Currently, a workaround is to install a stub exe via MSI and associate your
file extensions with it. All the stub exe does is to gather the path of the
file that is about to be launched and calls the ClickOnce application's
..Application with the path as the parameter.

The ClickOnce Application which is aware of the URL parameters open the
file on its (install and) launch. This way the latest version of the App is
associated with the file type.

FYI, the following MSDN document discusses how to create an installer that
sets up file associations:

'Walkthrough: Deploying a Windows-based Application'
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/k3bb4tfd(VS.80).asp x

Hope this helps.
If you have any question, please feel free to let me know.


Sincerely,
Linda Liu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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RE: Clickonce, file associations

Hi Kenneth,

How about the problem now?

If you have any question, please feel free to let me know.

Thank you for using our MSDN Managed Newsgroup Support Service!

Sincerely,
Linda Liu
Microsoft Online Community Support