Publishing an installed windows application using click once

Question

We have an windows application (let's say MyApp) installed by an *.msi file and we need to update it whenever a newer version is released. What we would like to do that:

1) We install the new version of the program by using the setup file to a Server location.

2) We copy the installed files from C:\\Program Files (x86)\\MyApp to a shared folder on a server (let's say MyServer\\C:\\MyApp).

3) We create a click once application and want to let our users to give a link so that they can install and update their program (MyApp) using click once from the published location (MyServer\\C:\\MyApp).

So, in that case how can we do that? I think we create a Windows Form project in Visual Studio 2015, but not any idea about the next steps. Any hepl would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Updated Answer:

So you have your files on your server. When there will be an actual update happening you will need to download all the files to the install directory on a users computer. To make this easier, create an archive (.zip) from those file. We will also need a file containing the version number of the application that is archived. So create a simple text file (.txt) . The content of the file should be the version number only (example: 1000). The version number in this file can't be negative or 0. When you would like to update , create a new archive (.zip) file and increase the version number in the text file.

Now the magic starts. Create a Visual Studio Windows Forms application . This application when executed, will check for updates, download them if needed and then run the application (that is on the server). To do this we will need a kind of way of telling which version is installed. For that we will use Application Settings . Create a setting called "version", that is an integer . The value must be 0 , meaning that the application (the server one) was never installed before.

When the application starts, we will download the string inside the "version.txt", that is on the server using (C# example):

WebClient client = new WebClient ();
string latest_string = client.DownloadString ("MyServer.net/version.txt");

Then convert the string into an integer so we can compare it to the version stored in the application settings (C# example):

int latest = Int32.Parse(latest_string);

Then we use a simple if statement (C# example):

if(Properties.Settings.Default.version < latest){
//Update available
}else {
//Lunch the program and skip the update
}

If the update is available we want to download the archive , extract it to the lunch location and execute the program .

Downloading (C# exapmle):

using (var client = new WebClient(){
client.DownloadFile("MyServer.net/Update.zip", "Update.zip");
}

For extracting we use the ZipFile class ( help link ) (C# example):

string dir = Environment.CurrentDirectory + "MyApp";
if(Directory.Exists(path)){
Directory.Delete(dir, true);
}
ZipFile.ExtractToDirectory("Update.zip", dir);

We need to update the version setting, because the application was updated and we don't want to continuously download (C# example):

Properties.Settings.Default.version = "latest";
Properties.Settings.Default.Save();

Start the process (C# example):

Process myProcess = new Process();
myProcess.StartInfo.FileName = "dir + "run.exe";
myProcess.Start();

And finally we close the application and let the app run (C# example):

Environment.Exit(0);

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I did my best explaining this and I hope, that I helped you. I am 15 yrs old and English is not my first language, so sorry for the mistakes in the anwser.