"Out of browser" web application running at Start-Up?

Question

I've become familiar with the new concept of "out of browser" web applications, supported in the recent Silverlight, JavaFX, Adobe AIR etc.

Listening recently to a podcast on the subject by Scott Hanselman, I've become aware that one of the purposes behind these new architectures is to allow for "desktop-application-feel". Also, I understand some (or all) of these allow for some offline access to a sandbox of resources. This really sounds as if these frameworks could be an alternative to "real" desktop applications, as long as the application does not require messing with the user's machine (i.e. access to peripherals, certain file IO, etc).

I have a very specific question. My application needs to run at start-up. Is it possible to do so using such a framework without requiring the user to download and run a certain executable?

For example, I could always direct the user to download a small EXE that will put a .lnk file in the start-up directory, but I want to avoid such a patch.

To summarize: is it possible to have an out-of-browser web application setup itself to run at start-up without requiring file download?

To further clarify, this question does not come from an "evil" place, but rather from trying to decide whether "out-of-browser" frameworks are indeed a proper alternative to a desktop application, for my specific requirements.

Answer 1

The BkMark example here shows how to start an application on startup using Adobe Air. So, yes it is possible.