Updating installation

Question

If we give set up to the user then there is a possibility of coming changes in the code for the set up we had given to the user then we have to make set up again and then we will have to give the set up to the user, then it is not problem but user has to uninstall that set up and has to install new set up again, that is the problem then is there any other option to that ?

I am asking this question because in a application there is a chance to come changes in only one dll of the application then is there is any other option that we make the changes in that dll and give to the user and user has to update only that dll and not has to uninstall whole setup and reinstall whole setup ?

Answer 1

.net dlls don't need to be registered so why dont you make a small update program that would simply replace the updated dll. No need to uninstall and reinstall.

Answer 2

If I understand your question correctly, you are asking for a better deployment solution for .NET based applications?

In that case I suggest you take a look at ClickOnce. Visual Studio has ClickOnce support out of the box.

Basicaly you deploy the applications through some medium, for example via the internet, and whenever you push a new update the customer will have the option of upgrading automatically, of you can even have your software update in the background.

If you do not want to use ClickOnce, the other option is to use MEF. This will allow you to extend your application with so called add-ons. These add-ons are basically classes that are loaded from assemblies at runtime.This means you could have a running application using version 1.0 of a certain assembly and even while the application is running the user could replace an assembly and the software would be up to date.

So either you use clickonce to update the entire app automatically, or you break your application up into smaller parts, load those parts using MEF and have an installer that simply replaces parts on the target system.