What are the disadvantages of using ClickOnce Deployment in .NET?

Question

Can someone tell me some drawbacks of ClickOnce deployment regarding other deployment methods?

Answer 1

One of the major drawbacks is that ClickOnce applies only to the user who installs it. It is not shared with other users. This may or may not be a problem for your particular use case.

This one lists some of the differences between ClickOnce and the default settings.

Answer 2

Installation location

All program files will be installed in a special ClickOnce directory, which is cryptic and inaccessible. I found this to be unpleasant from time to time, i.e. If you try to figure out what is happening on the client machine. The approach made by Squirrel for Windows - installing everything in the AppData directory would be much nicer, in my opinion.

Customer perception

The user interface of the installation does not look too nice and is not customizable. User experience can be perceived as shadowy / unreliable because it does not look like a regular installer. I found that customers were annoyed by the fact that they did not require administrator rights to install. This made them suspect some kind of hack in the setup.

Elevated Installation Options

Obviously, since ClickOnce does not require elevated permissions (administrator accounts), it cannot perform operations that require them. That is why the program cannot be installed for all users on the computer, create HKLM registry entries, etc. I would not really call this a flaw, but it is a flaw that provides the advantage of an installation without increased resolution.

I would love to use ClickOnce if it weren’t for the cryptic installation path and UI / UX limitations.

Answer 3

ClickOnce also deploys your application as other installation projects, but you will skip the setup of the installer user interface.

Answer 4

Registering com dll is a bit complicated if you want to install them in parallel with other versions of com dll. (works with the record "Isolated com").

You cannot refer to specific paths / folders on the client machine, for example, configuration files.

Answer 5

And, of course, your license will expire in 1 year. Therefore, you need to uninstall and install all clients.