Question

The objective:
– Server side: Write a file to the response stream after verifying credentials. In other words, no public access to the file.
– Client side: Download this file by from http://xyz.com?credentials=abc

So far, the ASPX page does the following:

• Verify credentials
• this.Response.ContentType = “application/octet-stream”;
• this.Response.BinaryWrite(binaryReader.ReadBytes(1024));

What is the best way to download this file data from a WinForms app?

Answer 1

The simplest approach would be to use WebClient:

WebClient wc = new WebClient();
wc.DownloadFile(url, filename);

(Either start this not in the UI thread, or use the async version. You don’t want your UI thread to block while downloading.)