How can I use one EXE on Multiple machines?

I have one EXE on my server machine (Windows Server 2003) and now I want users on multiple computers (Windows XP) to create one shortcut on their respective machine and access this EXE.

How can I do that?

Details: Currently after making any changes in the software, I need to replace EXE on each machine in order to apply the changes.

What I want is to install software on a centralized machine and I want my user to use this s/w from that centralized location, so that I do not need to replace EXE on every machine after making any changes.

BTW: The software is created in VB.NET VS 2005.

Regards, Preeti


Take a look at Click Once. This will allow you to publish the application to a network share so that users can run it from a central single location and will automatically handle updates.

Although there is a good bit of complexity if you really dive into it, the short answer is that you right-click on your project in Visual Studio and choose "Publish". Choose a network share to publish to and users can then click on an ".application" file to run your program.

Later, as you produce updates for you application, increase your program's version number from the project properties and republish. Users will get the update the next time they start the application.

Note: The application will be copied to the user's local computer to run. This means that users can run it when they are off the network and you don't have to kick everyone out of the application to publish an update.


Couldn't you just put the .exe on a file share and create a shortcut to that path? As long as the users have correct permissions on the share you should be able to map a shortcut to \server\path\to\share\program.exe and run it.