main considerations while publishing application using SQL server Database

Question

I want to ask about the main considerations we have to put in mind when publishing application using SQLServer database?

I ask this question because I faced a problem when I developed an application using SQL server Database in C# and used it in another machine. The problem is an exception happen in launching the application.

This is the exception message:

<b>"The ConnectionString proberty has not been initialized"</b>. The ConnectionString is in App.config and assing while form loading.

This is the ConnectionString:

<b>"Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=test;Integrated Security=True;Pooling=False"</b> and it is in this file: appName.exe.config

The application is Desktop application and it's not need for installation just click .exe and it should connect to the existing SQLServer database with the ConncetionString in the appName.exe.config file.

Answer 1

The best way to deploy any type of application will be creating a setup.exe or .msi file. Since this will ensure the important files which will copy to the target machine. It also provides a well structured file hierarchy along custom action which we can program each and every steps of installation.

It is always good to keep the connection properties in a config file, which helps to change the configuration settings without building the project. The exe will reads data from the config file, so if we changed the values then also it will works fine. While creating the setup project add the configuration settings and deploy or it is also good to have a common setup msi and different config files.

For example the database may be different for servers like DEV,QA,Staging etc. For each sever the msi will be same but the connection string will be different. So there is also a way to create self extracting files which will update the config files . For QA,DEV,Staging etc different self extracting files will be there. by running those files, it is possible to update the server details and authentication details. By providing msi and extracting files, users can install the application very easily