Launching a Winform from an ASP.NET page

[Mike]

We have a two-pronged application, one is ASP.NET driven and the other is a
bunch of WinForms packed into a VB.NET executable. Is there anyways to be
able to call that executable from the ASPX page?

We had implemented a custom URL handler in the past, but in our next release
we cannot require any users to have administrative rights to their machine,
so that means they cannot write the necessary registry information to
register the URL handler, so we are having to find a different approach.

We've tried a WinForm control embedded in IE6, but Process.Start() renders
the method completely uncallable, so if anyone has any other ideas I could
try, please let me know.

Thanks,
Michael

 

[ashelley]

We've tried a WinForm control embedded in IE6, but Process.Start() renders
the method completely uncallable, so if anyone has any other ideas I could
try, please let me know.

I'm not sure how its done but the technology is called ActiveX
controls. Maybe the project has to be recompiled to be used as such?

After creating the control you could embed it into the page using the
<object> tags?

-Adam

 

[ashelley]

its not called activex any more! oops.

hope this helps.

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/articles/20021205.asp

-Adam

 

[Peter Kron]

You can launch Winforms via the <object> tag and them on demand.download.
There are code access security considerations if you want to do more than
Ul.

 

[Lucas Tam]

We have a two-pronged application, one is ASP.NET driven and the other
is a bunch of WinForms packed into a VB.NET executable. Is there
anyways to be able to call that executable from the ASPX page?

Create a DLL interface - sort of a class factory. In the DLL, add a
reference to the .EXE. Use the DLL to instantiate the form logic.

However, I would avoid Winforms in IE if possible... I found them to be
unreliable, require too much tweaking with security, and generally
immature. I think Microsoft needs a couple more iterations before Winforms
in IE will work smoothly.