I have a C# Windows Forms application. Can I deploy it on web, so that users can access through web?

Question

We have done a Windows based application useing C# (.NET 2.0, Visual Studio 2005). Now redoing this application web based, is a time and resource consuming process and which is next to impossible for me.

We need to host this, so that the user can access through the Internet.

Through RDP the user can access the Windows application, but the issues here is more users can not operate simultaneously.

Can it be hosted as a web application, so that the user can access it through browser?

Answer 1

No, you cannot make it available directly via the web as you would a website, Windows Forms applications run directly on the client machine.

What you can do is package it up as an MSI installer, so that the end user can easily install it, and then have access resources such as a database via the Internet (the simplest way to expose these resources is as a web service). If you choose to use this mechanism then you will only have to refactor part of your application, assuming that you have already structured it nicely into an n-tier application.

Note that the user doesn't have to access these resources via the Internet though - your mention of users employing RDP would suggest that you have it sitting on an intranet, which means you may be able to "host" services such as a database on an machine that all the clients can see (and access) across the network. In this case all that may be required is to change any connection strings or paths you may have sitting in the configuration file of the application.

Answer 2

You could at least deploy it via the web using ClickOnce

ClickOnce deployment enables you to publish Windows-based applications to a Web server or network file share for simplified installation. Visual Studio provides full support for publishing and updating applications deployed with ClickOnce technology.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t71a733d(v=VS.90).aspx