ClickOnce application won't accept command-line arguments - vb.net

Question

I have a VB.NET application that takes command-line arguments.
It works fine when debugging provided I turn off Visual Studio's ClickOnce security setting.
The problem occurs when I try to install the application on a computer via ClickOnce and try to run it with arguments. I get a crash when that happens (oh noes!).
There is a workaround for this issue: move the files from the latest version's publish folder to a computer's C: drive and remove the ".deploy" from the .exe. Run the application from the C: drive and it will handle arguments just fine.
Is there a better way to get this to work than the workaround I have above?
Thanks!

Answer 1

"Command-line arguments" only work with a ClickOnce app when it is run from a URL.
For example, this is how you should launch your application in order to attach some run-time arguments:
http://myserver/install/MyApplication.application?argument1=value1&argument2=value2
I have the following C# code that I use to parse ClickOnce activation URL's and command-line arguments alike:
public static string[] GetArguments()
{
var commandLineArgs = new List<string>();
string startupUrl = String.Empty;
if (ApplicationDeployment.IsNetworkDeployed &&
ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.ActivationUri != null)
{
// Add the EXE name at the front
commandLineArgs.Add(Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()[0]);
// Get the query portion of the URI, also decode out any escaped sequences
startupUrl = ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.ActivationUri.ToString();
var query = ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.ActivationUri.Query;
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(query) && query.StartsWith("?"))
{
// Split by the ampersands, a append a "-" for use with splitting functions
string[] arguments = query.Substring(1).Split(new[] { '&' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Select(a => String.Format("-{0}", HttpUtility.UrlDecode(a))).ToArray();
// Now add the parsed argument components
commandLineArgs.AddRange(arguments);
}
}
else
{
commandLineArgs = Environment.GetCommandLineArgs().ToList();
}
// Also tack on any activation args at the back
var activationArgs = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetupInformation.ActivationArguments;
if (activationArgs != null && activationArgs.ActivationData.EmptyIfNull().Any())
{
commandLineArgs.AddRange(activationArgs.ActivationData.Where(d => d != startupUrl).Select((s, i) => String.Format("-in{1}:\"{0}\"", s, i == 0 ? String.Empty : i.ToString())));
}
return commandLineArgs.ToArray();
}
Such that my main function looks like:
/// <summary>
/// The main entry point for the application.
/// </summary>
[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
var commandLine = GetArguments();
var args = commandLine.ParseArgs();
// Run app
}