[ale] OT Running executable apps on IIS

[Jeff Hubbs]

No.  VNC is meant to export a Windows machine's entire display out to
one or more other machines.  Windows to this day has no concept of
independent severable displays either per system or per application.  In
order to get that class of behavior, you have to go to a Citrix or NTTSE
(or whatever they call it now) solution.

Basically, there isn't a way (that I know of) to run an arbitrary Win
app via Web initiation UNLESS the link you click on is a document type
that the browser recognizes and the appropriate app is launches as a
result.  For instance, click on a link to a .doc file and OpenOffice :)
should launch.  The Win app so launched can either live on the client's
own drive or on a file server.

When 100base-T Ethernet first hit, it became more effective to
network-store your Win apps because you could actually get them to the
machine faster than you could get them off their own drives.  Also, back
then, app installations took up a significant percentage of hard drive
space.  Neither has been true for a while, so at this point the
strongest case for doing that in this day and age would involve admin
overhead and complexity reduction.  

I still believe, however, that there is a good case for application
serving - it's just that Microsoft does not offer a good open-standards
way to do it, nor do they offer an X server as part of the standard
Windows installation (if at all).  Linux/Unix plus X just plain owns
that methodology; all we need is a solid replacement for X that isn't
such a bandwidth eater (I understand there's something called Y in
development).  I've also seen that, for instance, Mozilla has a
footprint that doesn't grow much when multiple instances are running on
the same machine even if their displays are exported elsewhere.  This
means that you can set up a great "Mozillaserv" on not too much hardware
and share it out to a few hundred people.  

On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 16:10, tfreeman at intel.digichem.net wrote:
> I'm not sure, but wouldn't a vnc server on a stand-alone windows box come 
> close to what is desired??
> 
> On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Keeler, James wrote:
> 
> > Yes, they are GUI.
> > 
> > My hope was that I could have the user interact with a program that was
> > running on the server while relaying the screen output to the user; kind of
> > like a published app in Citrix.
> > 
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > James R. Keeler, MCSE
> > Information Systems Specialist
> > Hamilton County Sheriff's Office
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > 
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Geoffrey [mailto:esoteric at 3times25.net] 
> > Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 12:16 PM
> > To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> > Subject: Re: [ale] Running executable apps on IIS
> > 
> > 
> > Keeler, James wrote:
> > > I am always being hit up by people in the department to put certain 
> > > programs on the intranet so that everyone can access them.  Some of 
> > > these are EXEs. How can I get these to run on the server side?
> > 
> > Just noticed you mentioned IIS in the subject.  (should be prefaced by 
> > OT) :)
> > 
> > You're very likely out of luck, unless these just generate ascii output. 
> >   Most windows programs are tied to a gui.  If it does only generate 
> > ascii output, you would need to go the cgi route.
> > 
> > 
-- 
Jeff Hubbs <hbbs at comcast.net>