For my .Net desktop apps I usually create an MSI installer (I create a 2nd project in my solution, a Setup & Deployment project) and I zip the setup.exe file with the <appname>.msi files together and put them up for download on my site. The installer will go through the process of asking where they would like to install the application (it creates the needed shortcuts and everything).
Right now I'm looking at adding a feature to some of these programs where it'll periodically check it's corresponding xml file on my web server and see if there's a newer version of itself available. I have this portion working just fine, where I'm stuck is that I would like to have it download a separate msi installer to update itself.
The idea is that it would download this different msi file, execute it while the app closes itself. This msi would not ask any questions, it would simply update the needed files in whatever location the first msi installer put the app. When this updater msi is done, it would just re-start the application.
How would I go about making an msi installer that doesn't have any prompts and installs the application where ever the first msi installer put it (where ever the user chose to install it to)?
Also, how do I have the installer launch the app before it closes itself?
Right now I'm looking at adding a feature to some of these programs where it'll periodically check it's corresponding xml file on my web server and see if there's a newer version of itself available. I have this portion working just fine, where I'm stuck is that I would like to have it download a separate msi installer to update itself.
The idea is that it would download this different msi file, execute it while the app closes itself. This msi would not ask any questions, it would simply update the needed files in whatever location the first msi installer put the app. When this updater msi is done, it would just re-start the application.
How would I go about making an msi installer that doesn't have any prompts and installs the application where ever the first msi installer put it (where ever the user chose to install it to)?
Also, how do I have the installer launch the app before it closes itself?
