[This post is meant to be read by your ISP, as part of your request to get their systems properly configured to deal with WPF applications.]

Windows Vista Applications

With the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft has provided some new technologies for Developers and Designers to build great applications.  One of the best things about these applications is that they are easier to publish to users and keep up to date. 

Users of these new applications will no longer have to download a setup program or zip file in order to get great applications running on their system.

A key ingredient to that story is having a properly configured web server.  Some web servers need to be taught about the file extension to content type mapping via a configuration setting.  IIS, for example, doesn't allow sending any files whose content type is unknown.

As part of the Windows Vista wave, the 6 file extensions listed below should be registered with the following Content Types.

Extension: Content Type

• .xaml: application/xaml+xml
• .application: application/x-ms-application
• .xbap: application/x-ms-xbap
• .manifest: application/manifest
• .deploy: application/octet-stream
• .xps: application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument

This was clipped from Microsoft's official documentation on the configuration needed.

What are these file types?

To learn more about these different file types, I'd recommend the following locations:

• xaml: wpf and wpf/e
• clickonce files (.application, .xbap, .deploy, .manifest): here
• xps (xml paper specification): http://microsoft.com/xps

How do developers publish their applications

Visual Studio has a Build/Publish menu option.  It will create the appropriate clickonce files locally and can copy them to your server automatically.