A Simple WebClient Question.
Is it possible to run a WebClient application on a Windows PC without any local software installations?
That is: loading all WebClient files, definition files (*.ini, *.pf, icfconfig.xml) and compiled client code from file server?
Almost. Obviously you need Progress WebClient installed but almost nothing else.
You also need a way of getting your first files onto the client and creating a shortcut, we build a lightweight installer with NSIS, it has an initial version of the .pf .ini and start-up .r file in. If you plan and build this right it doesn't need admin rights. The shortcut is of the form
"<WebClient Install Dir>\bin\prowc.exe" -pf myparams.pf -ini myenv.ini
The .pf sets a -p option with the name of the start-up program, and -param with the AppServer connect parameters, and a unique identifier for the application.
Your startup program parses SESSION:PARAMETER to connect to the AppServer.
We store all the details of the application in the DB, including a list of files the application needs, the client parses out the identifier from the parameters and passes it to the server. The server uses the identifier to look up the package in the DB. It then passes back a temp table with a list of all the files needed by the application, including an MD5 checksum of the current version on the server. Once the client gets this temp table back it checks it has all the files it needs, if any are not found, or the checksum doesn't match, it pulls the latest version back from the server. The server also provides the name of the application program to run once its finished updating itself.