NetRun, .Net 2.0 & Janus controls

Phil S posted on Friday, December 07, 2007

I have an interesting issue.

first some background...
Our winforms app originally started in .Net 1.1, and we adopted the NetRun as our application launcher that will download the "real" application from a webserver at each of our customer locations.  This makes updates nice and easy, only update the server and all clients get the new version with an app restart.

We have since migrated to .Net 2.0 and kept the existing NetRun/Launcher code, and it works (until now) just fine.

Our "real" application uses Janus winforms controls (version 3.5.0.16).  After installing .Net framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 on the end-user's computer, we get an exception.  SP1 introduced changes inside the System.Uri class which is throwing an ArgumentException with a message of "Absolute path is required".

This only occurs when we use an "installed" NetRun/Launcher.

If I load up the NetRun/Launcher in the IDE and walk through the code in either Release or Debug mode there is no problem, it's only when using the installed Launcher.

I have an open MSDN ticket and am going back and forth with Janus to find a resolution.  I'm posting here too so I can get more eyes on the problem (hopefully)

Does anyone else use this combination of technologies and has bumped into this?

Thanks
Phil

ajj3085 replied on Friday, December 07, 2007

Put the effort in to move to ClickOnce deployment.  It will be worth the investment.

CrazyCoder replied on Friday, January 04, 2008

I am having this exact issue - did you find a solution? (outside of ClickOnce which we will be looking at in the near future)

Phil S replied on Friday, January 04, 2008

I used 3 different pieces to resolve this.

Janus released an update to their winforms control package.  v 3.5.0.21
This did not resolve the problem in "all" cases, so i opened a ticket with MS.

I created my own workaround, but MS also provided a solution.

My Workaround:
perform an http file download of the remote config file...save to local disk, and then specify it's local path on the users hard drive when working with the AppDomainSetup object....this may not be viable depending on computer security settings...etc.

MS solution:
documented here 
http://blogs.msdn.com/jpsanders/archive/2007/12/18/system-argumentexception-absolute-path-information-is-required.aspx

The trick is to set this property on the AppDomain object.
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetData(".appVPath", "/")

CrazyCoder replied on Friday, January 04, 2008

Perfect - thanks very much!