Using Clickonce Deployment with Background intelligent transfer service

Question

We are thinking about the deployment and update strategy for a fairly large framework throughout our organization. The application will be in .NET 3.5 and will run on Windows XP

Answer 1

The thing is that BITS is used to transfer data in the background, while CLICKONCE is more-or-less a JIT downloader of those DLLs/executables needed to install/update/run an application.

Additionally, ClickOnce is an out-of-box experience. It already works, whereas a BITS solution (even one using the old Updater Application Block) requires you to roll out a framework for updating the application.

Also note that there's nothing saying that a BITS solution would be a "trickle" approach. One could have it download the file in one batch, on high-priority and basically emulate the functionality of ClickOnce, or one could build it to download updates in the background similiar to how FireFox performs updates.

Finally, be aware that ClickOnce does have security ramifications in what the ClickOnce deployed application is allowed to do by default, or even what resources it is allowed to communicate with by default. Read more here.