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Built a .NET Framework WinForms application in VS 2019 Community. The application runs on the machine where it is built. However, it does not work on another computer.

Got this "Application validation did not succeed. Unable to continue." message everytime installation was tried.

Tried:

  • copying the contents of the bin/Debug folder to the other machine.
  • copying the contents of the bin/Debug folder to the other machine.
  • "Publish"ing the project and installing it on the other machine.
  • "Signing" the project with security certificate created by VS and then tried all the above.
  • Compiling on Win 8.1 machine and copying / installing on Win 10 machine.
  • compiling on Win 10 machine and copying / installing on another Win 10 machine.
  • all the above WITH and WITHOUT selecting "Enable ClickOnce Security settings" in project properties "Security" tab.

Issues that may be affecting, from what was gleaned from searching the net, could be:

  • The security certificate generated by VS2019 was SHA1, may be SHA256 is needed to run the application on another machine ?
  • The "Smart Screen" on the other machine is not allowing the application ?
  • The application connects to the internet to do some tasks, which the target machine is not allowing ?
  • Does the application needs to be installed using an "installation package" or something like that ?
  • Has "VS2019 being used to build the application being 'Community' version" anything to do with this issue ?

If the project is compiled from source on the other machine in VS 2019, it works well on the other machine. So, at this point, installing VS 2019 on each machine on which the application is to be installed, and then building the project from source on each machine, seems to be the only solution a this point.

What am I missing or doing wrong ? (tackling "deployment" for the first time in my life !)

VCB
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1 Answers1

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Welcome to deployment. The discipline basically consists of:

  1. Deep dependency analysis. Understanding what the "footprint" of your application is so that it'll work on any machine.

  2. Learning how to automate #1. Could be Windows Installer packages, Click Once, scripts, containerization or whatever.

For your error message this seems relevant.

VS 2010 One Click Deployment Issue "Application Validation did not succeed. Unable to continue"

Christopher Painter
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  • Thanks for answering ! Did take a look at the link, the answer by Hans Passant is very thorough, appreciate that. Also went through the other two answers, which are much later, but the situations described in them did not seam to apply to my case. – VCB Dec 07 '20 at 14:45
  • I provide consulting services if you'd like someone to do a deep dive / root cause analysis and reccomend how to implement in your installer. – Christopher Painter Dec 07 '20 at 15:21
  • Taking a lead from the answer you linked, took a look at the output folder and found two `.manifest` files, complaining about not finding `assembly.adaptive.xsd`, that would mean something ? – VCB Dec 07 '20 at 15:26