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ClickOnce

Dotfuscator can protect ClickOnce applications.

Note: Dotfuscator Professional Edition supports the use of ClickOnce .application files as inputs. This will automatically protect and repackage the ClickOnce application's assemblies.

To integrate Dotfuscator Community Edition (CE) with a ClickOnce project:

1. In the Visual Studio IDE, disable the .deploy extension from being used with your published ClickOnce assemblies:

   • Open the Properties for your ClickOnce project.

   • Open the Publish tab.

   • Click Options....

   • Select Deployment.

   • Uncheck Use ".deploy" file extension.

   • Click OK.

2. Publish the ClickOnce application to a directory on disk, such as publish\.

3. Use the Dotfuscator CE User Interface to create and build a Dotfuscator configuration:

   • Add input assemblies corresponding to your published ClickOnce package. Normally, these are the assemblies located in the bin\Release subdirectory of your ClickOnce project, with extensions .exe and .dll. Do not include any vshost versions of those files.

   • Configure renaming and injection options appropriately.

   • Build the Dotfuscator configuration. The protected assemblies are placed in a subdirectory named Dotfuscated by default.

4. If your assemblies were strong-named, re-sign the protected versions of those assemblies with sn.exe (Strong Name Tool), for example:

   sn.exe -R Dotfuscated\YourApplication.exe strong_name_key.snk
   

5. Copy the protected assemblies on top of the unprotected versions in the ClickOnce publish location, for example:

   copy /y Dotfuscated\YourApplication.exe "publish\Application Files\YourApplication_1_0_0_0\"
   

6. Update the application manifest with mage.exe (Manifest Generation and Editing Tool), for example:

   mage.exe -Update "publish\Application Files\YourApplication_1_0_0_0\YourApplication.exe.manifest" -CertFile YourKey.pfx -Password your_pfx_password
   

7. Update the deployment manifest, for example:

   mage.exe -Update publish\YourApplication.application -AppManifest "publish\Application Files\YourApplication_1_0_0_0\YourApplication.exe.manifest" -CertFile YourKey.pfx -Password your_pfx_password
   

8. Manually publish (copy) the files to your deployment source location (Web server, UNC share, or CD-ROM).