> not quite cetralised functionality but only centralised place for

the software,

> to avoid distribution problems, etc.

A bit OT here, but we took a different approach to this problem. Our
client software has a simple ini file which contains a server path,
and a single executable.

The ini has a line that looks something like. It also has some basic
stuff used to build the connection string, but that may not be
relevant to you.

ServerPath=\\SomeServer\SomeShare\

We have a single executable that downloads any file from the
"ServerPath" if its file date is different, then executes the program.
Yes we could have gone for a more sophisticated approach, but this has
been working for about 18 months without a problem.

We originally had each client simply having a shortcut to the
ServerPath, but found that there was a performance penalty on slower
networks. The synchronisation only takes 1 second (if that) if there
is no changes to download.

It does not answer why your UDF can't launch over a network share (nor
do I want to think what would happen if you temporarily lose comms),
but consider it.

Adam