Currently, I have full access to a local Windows IIS System in which we execute a windows forms application as a processes in which the winform app runs and takes a screen shot of itself and the web call returns the URL of the saved image. The full process looks like -
User navigates to webpage
User inputs variables on web page and submits it to IIS end point.
IIS takes variables, runs Process.Start on winform app passing in variables.
IIS returns the URL from the screen capture of the winform app.
Is this something that is doable on Azure or Amazon? I'd like to put this in the cloud but I'm not sure if security restrictions would prevent an app like this from being executed as we had to give specific permissions to get this to work.
If you do this now on a server with IIS, you would be able to do it in the cloud (azure or amazon although I have no amazon experience so I'm guessing). The real question is what would you have to deploy. In this case, you cannot use an app service as your platform for this, you would have to run it in a virtual machine with IIS and configure everything as you do now. Or, if you are adventurous and need load balancing, etc. you could try a virtual machine scale set.
One caveat, since I do not know what the windows application does, what it depends on, you may need to put in some networking configuration if the windows app communicates back to an on-prem database or file store.
Related
I'm about to start development work on .NET 4.0 winforms application running on top of a Microsoft SQL Server 2012 database.
The number of users supposed to use the application might be any where between 2 to 10 and the application should be able to run either on a single stand alone computer or in an intranet in a windows environment.
in case the application is run on a single computer, each user would log into the application (not into windows) and perform what ever tasks they are authorized to do and then log out of the application.
If the application is configured to run on a small intranet, each user would log into the application from there respective office computers and do what ever they are authorized to do.
So, the application can run on a single none networked machine, where a single windows login account is being shared by staff at the facility but i have a requirement to allow access to certain application functionality depending on who is logged into the application, NOT who is logged into windows as the account might just be shared.
I have previously deployed ASP.NET applications in networked environments and used the SQL Membership, Roles and Profiles provider for authentication and authorization While for winforms apps, i have relied on active directory authentication.
Now with this particular project, i am wondering what the best solution might be. Probably some one here has implemented a solution for such a scenario and can give advice.
I have looked at this http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/27670/Implementing-Application-Security-with-Client-Appl solution but i still want to hear from the SO masses.
ALSO, any recommendation for a better post Title is welcome.
Once I worked in a WinForm application which was supposed to run on intranet, each user would log into the application....and this application was using centralized web service to authentication and other CRUD operation....The service was mediator between WinForm app and DB.
The approach given in code project article which u mentioned in question...is also fine.
Anyway I also got curious here....As you said u are about to start development in .Net 4.0 Winform.....I would like to understand why you made this choice over WPF? What reasons u got to favor WinForm in your scenario ?
I have a desktop application in C# and i want to make that a window service. Is it possible to make that application as a windows service? Basically i want an app that shows gui when needed and upone minimizing it goes to system try, and it should also appear in services... For application just take an example that my application have a timer and multiline text field and its also interacting with database and its showing timely status from database so when i need to see it i can start GUI from system try?
Any kind of help would be highly appriciated. Thanks!
You will need to separate your applications. Windows Service and desktop. You will need to build API hooks into your Windows Service to allow communication from your desktop application and the service. I would recommend WCF for this.
In a nutshell, a Windows Service should not interact with the desktop. It will run in a separate session than the session you are logged into, even if you are logged in as the same account the service is running under.
It is not possible to show GUI in a windows service.
What you can do is:
a. Seperate client logic from server logic, the windows service will perform the server side operations and will expose a WCF API to the client , which will handle the GUI related issues.
b. Use an external tool like Service-O-Matic to control your winforms application as if it was a windows service. see:
http://www.kwakkelflap.com/service.html
We have a SharePoint site that our users have open all the time (type of dashboard for the business). We have a WinForms application that listens on a specific port for when the user clicks a web part on the SharePoint site, we take the JSON in the WinForms, parse the request and launch a feature in the WinForms. Essentially allowing a web site to launch a feature in a running WinForms app on the same client machine.
This worked great when we were running in XP. When we moved to Windows 7 (with elevated UAC), this feature stopped working. Since we launch the WinForms app via ClickOnce, and ClickOnce apps can't be Run As Administrator, our current code won't work.
We can't make the ClickOnce app Run As Administrator for all the reasons you see here on StackOverflow.
So my question is: how can we invoke a feature in a ClickOnce deployed WinForms app when a user clicks on something in SharePoint site? It is super easy to get the WinForms app to call a Sharepoint web service but I need to go the otherway.
You can invoke a ClickOnce application by calling the deployment manifest URL. If you want to be able to call the app and have it do something specific, call the deployment manifest URL and pass query parameters to it, then have the application handle the query parameters.
This article shows you how to handle query parameters with ClickOnce applications.
I've got a Silverlight application that will be running out on the open internet, available to basically everyone who has ever lived.
The application makes use of RIA Services to manipulate data in a database on the server.
The application creates, reads, updates, and deletes data of different varieties, however I only want these operations to occur from within the application.
This brings about two questions:
Is there a particular recommendation for what type of Authentication to use? Forms or Windows?
Is there a way to prevent someone from "linking" to the application? That is to say, copying the HTML from the containing page, pasting it in their own HTML page on their local machine and running it? The end goal would be to only allow the application to be run when it is embedded in a page requested directly from my server and my server alone?
If your application is being used on an internal network, then Windows authentication is best. Otherwise (as is your case) use Forms authentication.
Silverlight automatically prevents applications (unless they're running with elevated trust) from accessing resources on the Internet (web services, HTML, etc) that are not from the domain that the application originated from, unless that domain has a cross-domain policy file in its root. The Silverlight runtime prevents this (not the server), so this a client based security feature - not server based. By not having a cross-domain policy file in place on your server, your application will only be able to communicate with your domain services when it is run from your server (as you are after). The application will run, but calls to those services will fail.
You could always do a check for what domain the application originated from in code, and match it to a hard-coded domain name if you want to prevent the application running at all from other domains.
Hope this helps...
Chris
I just lost 5 hours looking for a answer which i haven't been able to find :p
First, I'd like to force a trusted application (i need to access the file system) to display into the browser. Based on what i found on google a trusted application must be installed and launched as a desktop application (also called out-of-browser application).
So, i want to have an installed application on the client side but meanwhile, the user must also be able to start this same application into a browser window when he goes on my web site. Is this possible ?
Second, I'd like to give to the user the possibility to start the application from the browser. To be clear, the application is installed on the client computer but i want a button on my web site which starts the desktop application. How can i do that ?
Thanks
The answers are sort of and no.
Yes you can run an application that has been installed on the client also in the browser. However, not all of the installed application features will be available. Anything that requires elevated trust will not work inside the browser.
No you can't launch the installed application programmatically from within code running in the browser. The best you can do is display a polite message to the user to the effect that they have this app already installed and in order to access all of its feature they will need to launch it.
Yes, it is possbile since Silverlight 5, see my answer on silverlight-4-elevated-permission-inside-the-browser