I have developed a windows 8 app and I wish to install the app on 10 devices and also when I alter the app I wish to automatically upgrade the app installed on these 10 devices. I do not wish to use the windows store and the app and devices have the necessary certificates needed. Is there a way I can sideload the app to the 10 devices and upgrade the app easily without using a hardrive to uninstall and install the app on each device?
Altough this was asked a while ago i want to answer this, as i myself struggled a long time sideloading LOB-apps and Microsoft almost makes no efforts of clarifying the mess of their licensing programm.
You need to get a sideloading key, you can get it from the microsoft volume licensing center (it is not easy to find, best you ask a distributor partner) costs 100$ and is as far as i know for 25 devices. You need to be partner to obtain such a key.
UPDATE: for unlimited devices (see article posted from user3123726)
FYI: i doubt it but if you plan to have all devices in the same domain you do not need a sideload-key
On the device where the application should run
install the app certificate into 'trusted root certificates' and 'trusted publishers'
install and register the sideloading key
for installing:
/C slmgr /ipk 00000-00000-00000-00000-00000 //your side loading key
for registering:
/C slmgr /ato ec67814b-30e6-4a50-bf7b-d55daf729d1e //for everybody the same key
For publishing and updating the app Microsoft has a service called 'Intune' where you can register your devices and deploy store apps to. I have tried this solution and really couldn't make it work. It worked sometimes but had a lot of crashes and freezes with no usable error message. I highly recommend to write your own update function as i lost many many hours trying to get it to work. It also seems like nobody really is using this solution as it has only 12 reviews in the app store and no forums whatsoever talking about it. However if you wish to try see this link:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn646972.aspx
You'll need to install the 'Company store app' on each device.
If you tend to write your own update/install mechanism you can use this Powershell command to install the app on the device. You could use dropbox to distribute the packages to the devices and write a service which runs the powershell.
Add-AppxPackage -Path "yourapp.appx" -DependencyPath "Dependencies\x86\appdependency.appx"
Related
I work in a public sector university
I use selenium with C# for automating routine tasks. I have admin rights so I just develop
various win forms apps to do that. But most of my colleagues cant use such apps as they do not
have admin rights. The apps are so useful and time saving that I want it to share with all colleagues
But admin rights is the issue, so please direct me to a solution that can work completely on client side.
Plz also note that I cant create setups and ask networking staff to install it on all PCs as there are
around 150 of them, and also the apps often are updated every couple of months.
PhantomJS worked without requiring admin rights, but it is already paused, as per their official page, so the only hack to my mind is, ask networking staff to install visual studio (with C# setup) on all PCs, this way I can just hand over the apps to all and they can open and run from VS, instead of direct exe, and it will eliminate requiring updating of apps as users will just need to get the latest app folder. A down side is un necessary window of VS and the memory but the benefits would outweigh this issue.
I have developed some shiny apps which I want to make available to a few selected internal users for testing purposes and continued development.
Deploying the apps on the cloud or on shinyapps.io is not an option, as the apps are handling sensitive internal data.
Using ShinyServer is unfortunately also not an option, as we have a strict Microsoft only IT architecture and I thus have available only
a virtual machine with Windows Server 2012 R2 on it.
I have been doing some web search and have found out the following:
i.) I could host my apps on the Windows machine as explained here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/44584982/7306540 . This seems rather hackish and
not elegant at all. It would only allow hosting of one app at a time and I am not sure if it would allow several concurrent users at all.
ii.) I could use shinyproxy.io which would possibly work on the Windows machine but involves a fair amount of quite complex installation
and configuration work that I am not particularly keen on doing.
iii.) SQLServer 2016 seems to feature some sort of R integration. We are currently using SQLServer2014 and it would be possible to upgrade to 2016
in principle. However, I don't know if the "R features" of SQLServer2016 would allow hosting of Shiny Apps. I found this blog post, https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/1cf94cbb-c45d-4f8d-8b5e-9d208bfe369a/microsoft-r-server-can-i-host-shiny-apps-yet?forum=MicrosoftR , but without an answer:
Q: Does anyone know more about the capabilities of SQLServer2016 in this regard?
What about other options? Is there any other way to host my apps on the Windows Server? Do the makers of RStudio plan to add a Windows version of ShinyServer? Is anyone else working on this?
I would appreciate any insights into this topic!
EDIT:
Additional hosting options:
iv.) We can install a VM on the Windows Server, e.g. Virtual Box, or VM Player, install Linux and Shiny Server and host from there. We might run into problems in this variant if the Shiny Apps need to access SQL Server DB's on the Windows machine.
i.) This variant could possibly be improved by using (quote #gregL): "pm2.keymetrics.io, a process manager typically used for Node.js in production. The plumber docs describe how you can use pm2 with R: rplumber.io/docs/hosting.html#pm2"
Hosting of Shiny Apps is possible on Windows!
At work, we host several production shiny dashboards, so it is definitely possible. You can host more Shiny apps by extending the i.) solution you mentioned, and using different ports for the Apps. The steps that you need to take are listed here:
make sure that the port is open in the local (evtl. also remote) firewall for TCP/IP connections
run a "scheduled task" on the local machine that starts a local R session as described in i.), make sure that the task does time-out and restarts if needed
Once these settings are in place, you can already test the Shiny App, first locally, and also from the remote station. Editing the shiny app can be done also live, in what the GUI is concerned, but if you want to refresh the data, you will have to restart the R command process.
Tip: You should also have an index webpage where you list all running apps with their ports
I created an iOS 8.X app with the company I previously worked for, and would like to keep the app for personal reasons. I have all of the code for the app, but it was written in swift 1, and hasn't been updated to the swift 2 syntax. Also, it was written using provisioning profiles for my old company, which I no longer have access to.
I haven't upgraded my personal device to iOS 9 yet so I can keep the app on my device to demonstrate at job interviews.
Is there a way I can locally save the app on my computer and install it on any device without the proper provisioning profiles, developer license, etc.?
You'll need your own developer account, which shouldn't be a problem because they are free now. But basically if you have the source code, you can simply re-build it with your personal provisioning profile. Because you won't be able to set up an explicit application ID, you will simply create a wildcard id on Apple's developer site, then create a developer provisioning profile using that wildcard ID and your personal certificate. Then simply build it to the device directly.
Why are you not updating your device to iOS 9? If properly written, your app will work fin on iOS 9 if it worked on iOS 8. The opposite is not necessarily true, as an app with a minimum OS version of 9 probably makes SDK calls that did not exist in 8. Although some changes may be needed, you should be able to build your app with the latest version of Xcode even though you originally coded it in Swift 1.2. You can find simple instructions on how to do that upgrade. This will also allow you to address any potential iOS 9 issues.
If you don't have the source code, but have the .ipa file, you could also resign it using the instructions here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/25656455/3708242
This is not as ideal, because if there are iOS 9 or iOS 10 issues, you will not be able to fix them. I think keeping the source code available (if you are legally allowed to) will be your best bet.
I'm in the process of reengineering a desktop application to a Silverlight4-WCF client-server architecture. Apparently, some (not all) of our clients have very limited resources or dysfunctional relationships with their I/T support staff. Consequently, I've been asked to come up with a solution that would enable these clients to install the new SL app on a local desktop, possibly running IIS locally. Will probably wrap all this up in a installer to make deployment super easy.
While I don't endorse the idea of running IIS locally on each user's desktop, my thinking is that it will probably work. The biggest problem I envision is security -- the server code and configuration would be available locally. Still, I'm looking for input from the wider developer community because I'm uncomfortable by the proposal. What kind of hell and difficulties do you envision, or can this work with minimal fuss?
Using IIS locally may be more trouble than it's worth. Most configuration/maintenance tasks require the user to have Administrator access on the computer. Securing it is a bitch. Making sure its configuration doesn't drift and remains working as you release new versions is even more so. Moreover, it's not included in all Windows editions, e.g. Windows 7 Home edition. I recommend trying to roll with IIS Express as an embedded HTTP server instead.
As for code security - if you can't trust your clients' IT to look after deployment and security, or they can't/don't want to, you could host the server-side yourself and bill your customers for it, i.e. SaaS.
Just my 2 cents.
EDIT:
Oh, yeah. If you're concerned about trade secret theft, e.g. reverse engineering of your server code, just run it through an obfuscator, e.g. SmartAssembly. That'll give you an edge. As for IP theft, e.g. piracy, use could use some online license checking scheme - it won't compromise client privacy, and it'll deter copying.
My company recently deployed our first Silverlight app, and, as expected, we've had a couple of small issues with getting it to run on some clients' machines. Mostly it was javascript that was disabled or using a non-supported browser, but I was wondering if there was a resource that lists the common issues that users run up against so that we can post in our FAQs section and hopefully decrease the volume of calls we recieve about it.
Thanks.
The user might not have Silverlight installed.
If the user doesn't have administrator permissions he or she cannot install it. -- FAIL!
The majority of users in corporate and government environments don't have administrator accounts.... to make sure they don't install stuff like silverlight. :-)