.NET simple application update mechanism

Question

Environment:

• .NET
• C#
• Visual Studio 2005 and
• Some third-party components
• .vdproj files (setup projects inside Visual Studio 2005) for .msi building - not "ClickOnce deployment"

Problem

I am in a project phase where there are several updates to the project during a day. Since every change is small (two assemblies at most), it would be convenient for the user to use some kind of automatic update that will be both fast and worry-free.

Proposition

I would like to do a simple system that would store my application files somewhere on my server, along with some XML file that will list them with their hashes. A desktop application will read XML, compare hashes, download the required files, restart the application and the user would have a new version without even noticing it.

So my thoughts go further...

Client application for it: simple, day or two of work. Considerations:

• Have to take care of permissions to write files to user program directory (actually I'm helpless if I can't)
• Have to launch an updater process that will download and replace files and relaunch the original application
• Have to make a local XML file with hashes at the first run, and for that I need local list of deployed files that could change (since all of them aren't just in the local application folder)

Server side is trivial, but there are also some considerations:

• The root file with current version description, file list and hashes
• Manually upload files to server, create tool for hashing files

Is there some tool that follows my train of thought to do that without much hassle from the side?

Answer 1

Some solutions:

Updater Application Block - instructions on how to use it

.NET Client Applications: .NET Application Updater Component

Appupdater

Answer 2

What you describe sounds a lot like ClickOnce. Yes: I noticed that your wrote that the application is installed via MSI, and that's fine.

ClickOnce is more than just initial installation. There are many options, and you can set it up so that it checks for updates even if the application is already running, and there's also an API that you can use if the declarative approach isn't flexible enough for you.