.Net Application Deployment

Typically, I'd prefer you to just package the application in a Windows Installer (MSI) package. I can deploy that to any number of PCs painlessly in just a few minutes.

I'd rather have the application on the hard disk drives of my PCs versus sitting on a "shared folder" on a server. Odds are good that the application will startup very poorly if the "shared folder" on the server is across a slow WAN line, but the application's user experience, with respect to accessing a remote SQL Server database, may be acceptable over the same WAN line. As such, I'd prefer the application on the PC's hard disk drive.

I also consider my LAN bandwidth to be a precious commodity, and dragging down a program across the wire each time a user starts it seems wasteful to me.

Evan makes some very good points. I would like to address your update process as well: While I understand that you want to simplify the upgrade process, this can be dangerous. Simple isn't easy.

I would (as an administrator) like to see an MSI installer (with an uninstaller). Upgrades should be handled the same way. In this way, our installation process can also be our upgrade process.

May I also add your first feature request? Make a registry setting that contains the version information of the application. This should be set during installation and reset during upgrades. While not a huge fan of the registry in general this is the windows paradigm. It's much easier than checking the version of the DLLs (or whatever files you'll be using).

Thank you so much for asking us sysadmins what we want. Please come back when ever you have questions, and bring your friends.

You should look into ClickOnce Deployment. Wikipedia description.

+1 for clickonce deployments. I use this to manage 3 app's over 100+ machines in 4 countries.

One thing I would like to add is that .NET application executed from a network path runs under low privileges. Depending upon what your application is doing, this may not be a big deal. But you should check this before you choose this path. There are good suggestions provided on this thread - Click Once, MSI and deployment via GPO. I can say I have used all of them in some capacity. With Click Once you don't need a lot of help from administrator except setting up a virtual directory for hosting your forms app.