Auto-update library for .NET? [closed]

Question

ClickOnce has its own security limitations (understandbly so). If you want the full power and control of a Windows application then go with the .NET application updater component. It works like a charm and has even been used by Microsoft internally for their .NET based game (I don't remember the game name though).

Let me start by saying we offer a complete updating solution which includes:

• An open source updater, wyUpdate, written in C#
• The free AutomaticUpdater control that you can just add to your .NET app's form
• wyBuild is used to build patches and manage your versions

wyUpdate handles all of the Vista/Windows 7 UAC problems and all the file permission problems that inevitably pop up when you're trying to update complex software.

That being said, if you want to build your own updater here are some tips:

Building your own updater

A good place to start is the wyUpdate C# source code I mentioned above. You can cannibalize it and use it for your own purposes. Some of the algorithms it contains:

• Full Windows Vista / Windows 7 UAC support
• Ability for limited users to check and then update if they have credentials
• Support for wonky corporate inernet. (If you've ever worked with a corporation this is a real problem).
• Quick extracting, patching, and installing of files.
• Registry support.
• Roll back files & registry on error or cancellation by the user
• Self-update (no files left behind)

We also have the file specifications here.

Automatic updating

Since being automatic is a requirement let me tell you how we do it with our AutomaticUpdater control.

We use named pipes to communicate between the standalone updater (wyUpdate) and the Automatic Updater control sitting on your program's form. wyUpdate reports progress to the Automatic Updater, and the Automatic Updater can tell wyUpdate to cancel progress, to start downloading, start extracting, etc.

This keeps the updater separate from your application.

In fact, the exact named pipes C# code we use is included in an article I wrote a little while back: Multi-process C# app like Google Chrome.

ClickOnce is my preferred method. It has some warts, but it comes with Visual Studio and works reasonably well.

ClickOnce is heavily used, but you can do what I did for a large application and try these:

• Application Auto Update in VB.NET

• Application Auto Update Revisited

I tinkered with the logic a bit and built what I thought was a better XML update file. Now, when I need to update the clients, I just post the new EXE files or DLL files and set the correct versions in the public XML file. My application detects the newer versions if it is older and updates itself. If you are doing this on Windows Vista, you need to prompt for administrator permissions so that Program Files can be written to (if you install there).

You can also easily convert this to C# using C#/VB.NET Converter.