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> Although this is a pain, because the computers don't have admin rights,
> and
> the MSI has to be run by an admin, and users don't have those rights.
Automation of the policy modification is also possible. For example, on a
Windows domain, the MSI can be installed from a GPO on a Windows domain. On
other network types, the are other options like using startup and/or login
scripts to execute a caspol command line.
> This has worked, however we found out that the digital signature only
> lasts
> one year. After that we have to resign the .exe and dll's AS well as
> create
> a new MSI which must be run again on each workstation.
If you timestamp your signature (via the -t command line switch for
signcode.exe), you won't need to resign your assemblies when the signing
certificates expire. Obviously, you'll still have a problem with changing
signing certificates for patches and/or upgrades, but at least it won't be a
constant yearly problem.
> Is there a better way to do this, so that we don't need to go through the
> hassles of resigning the code files as well as creating and executing (on
> each workstation) the .MSI.
You could use only other criteria (e.g.: source URL) for creating your code
group, but I wouldn't recommend this. Using an publisher criterion is a
very good idea, and your best bet is probably to keep on doing so. In order
to minimize the work required, use timestamping and try to work with the
network admins to identify if there's some way the policy modification
distribution can be automated.