CODEWITHSUNDEEP
deploymentspotifyauto-updatesoftware-distribution
SyZEN33
SyZEN33

Reputation: 3

How does the Spotify updater work?

So once in a while, when Spotify updates their clients, Spotify will show a banner that says an update will be performed when restarted. How does spotify make this work?

I'm assuming it must be something different, since most software needs you to redownload the binary´, and then perform a more or less assisted reinstall.

Example: When VLC has an update, it always tells you when you run VLC to watch something, but instead of just having a one-button "update and restart", it will download the installer and run the installer, but this is a lot more button presses than just doing what Spotify does.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 264

Answers (1)

iKenndac
iKenndac

Reputation: 18776

Spotify downloads the installer and puts it somewhere in the AppData folder and relaunches itself. On launch, if an installer for a newer version is present it'll launch the installer in silent mode and exit. Once the installer has updated the client, it'll automatically relaunch the newer client.

This slightly odd sequence of events means that if the user ignores the banner and exits the client normally, it'll still get updated on next launch. I believe Google Chrome uses a similar mechanism.

Upvotes: 2

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