AutoUpdater.NET

AutoUpdater.NET is a class library that allows .NET developers to easily add auto-update functionality to their classic desktop application projects.

The NuGet Package

PM> Install-Package Autoupdater.NET.Official

Supported .NET versions

• .NET Framework 4.6.2 or above
• .NET Core 3.1
• .NET 5.0 or above

Supported Windows versions

• Windows 8 or above
• Windows version lower than 8 requires .NET Framework 4.5 or above installed for ZipExtractor to work. You can use the installer instead of a zip file as an update file to avoid this issue.

This library only works for WinForms or WPF application projects.

How it works

AutoUpdater.NET downloads the XML file containing update information from your server. It uses this XML file to get the information about the latest version of the software. If the latest version of the software is greater than the current version of the software installed on the User's PC, then AutoUpdater.NET shows an update dialog to the user. If they press the update button to update the software, then It downloads the update file (Installer) from URL provided in the XML file and executes the installer file it just downloaded. It is the job of the installer after this point to carry out the update. If you provide zip file URL instead of installer, then AutoUpdater.NET will extract the contents of the zip file to the application directory.

Using the code

XML file

AutoUpdater.NET uses an XML file located on a server to get the release information about the latest version of the software. You need to create an XML file like below, and then you need to upload it to your server.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<item>
  <version>2.0.0.0</version>
  <url>https://rbsoft.org/downloads/AutoUpdaterTest.zip</url>
  <changelog>https://github.com/ravibpatel/AutoUpdater.NET/releases</changelog>
  <mandatory>false</mandatory>
</item>

There are two things you need to provide in an XML file, as you can see above.

• version (Required): You need to provide the latest version of the application between version tags. Version should be in X.X.X.X format.

• url (Required): You need to provide the URL of the latest version installer file or zip file between url tags. AutoUpdater.NET downloads the file provided here and installs it when the user presses the Update button.

• changelog (Optional): You need to provide the URL to the change log of your application between changelog tags. If you don't provide the URL of the changelog, then the update dialog won't show the change log.

• mandatory (Optional): You can set this to true if you don't want the user to skip this version. This will ignore Remind Later and Skip options and hide both Skip and Remind Later buttons on the update dialog.

  • mode (Attribute, Optional): You can provide a mode attribute on a mandatory element to change the behavior of the mandatory flag. If you provide "1" as the value of the mode attribute, then it will also hide the Close button on the update dialog. If you provide "2" as the value of the mode attribute, then it will skip the update dialog and start downloading and updating the application automatically.

  <mandatory mode="2">true</mandatory>
  

  • minVersion (Attribute, Optional): You can also provide minVersion attribute on a mandatory element. When you provide it, the Mandatory option will be triggered only if the installed version of the app is less than the minimum version you specified here.

  <mandatory minVersion="1.2.0.0">true</mandatory>
  

• executable (Optional): You can provide the path of the executable if it was changed in the update. It should be relative to the installation directory of the application. For example, if the new executable is located inside the bin folder of the installation directory, then you should provide it as shown below.

<executable>bin\AutoUpdaterTest.exe</executable>

• args (Optional): You can provide command line arguments for Installer between this tag. You can include %path% with your command line arguments, it will be replaced by the path of the directory where the currently executing application resides.
• checksum (Optional): You can provide the checksum for the update file between this tag. If you do this, AutoUpdater.NET will compare the checksum of the downloaded file before executing the update process to check the integrity of the file. You can provide an algorithm attribute in the checksum tag to specify which algorithm should be used to generate the checksum of the downloaded file. Currently, MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA384, and SHA512 are supported.

<checksum algorithm="MD5">Update file Checksum</checksum>

You can also use the XML creator tool created by one of the users to create the XML file. You can download it from here.

Adding one line to make it work

After you are done creating and uploading the XML file, It is straightforward to add an auto-update functionality to your application.

First, you need to add the following line at the top of your form.

using AutoUpdaterDotNET;

Now you need to add the following line to your main form constructor or in Form_Load event. You can add this line anywhere you like. If you don't like to check for update when the application starts, then you can create a Check for update button and add this line to the Button_Click event.

AutoUpdater.Start("https://rbsoft.org/updates/AutoUpdaterTest.xml");

Start method of AutoUpdater class takes the URL of the XML file you uploaded to the server as a parameter.

AutoUpdater.Start should be called from the UI thread.

Current version detection

AutoUpdater.NET uses Assembly version to determine the current version of the application. You can update it by going to Properties of the project as shown in the following screenshot.

The version specified in the XML file should be higher than the Assembly version to trigger the update.

If you want to provide your own Assembly, then you can do it by providing the second argument of the Start method as shown below.

AutoUpdater.Start("https://rbsoft.org/updates/AutoUpdaterTest.xml", myAssembly);

Configuration Options

Provide the installed version manually

If you don't want AutoUpdater.NET to determine the installed version from assembly, then you can provide your own version by assigning it to the InstalledVersion field as shown below.

AutoUpdater.InstalledVersion = new Version("1.2");

Download Update file and XML using FTP

If you like to use ftp XML URL to check for updates or download the update file, then you can provide your FTP credentials in the alternative Start method as shown below.

AutoUpdater.Start("ftp://rbsoft.org/updates/AutoUpdaterTest.xml", new NetworkCredential("FtpUserName", "FtpPassword"));

If you are using FTP download URL in the XML file, then credentials provided here will be used to authenticate the request.

Check for updates synchronously

If you want to check for updates synchronously, then set Synchronous to true before starting the update as shown below.

AutoUpdater.Synchronous = true;

Disable Skip Button

If you don't want to show the Skip button on the Update form, then just add the following line with the above code.

AutoUpdater.ShowSkipButton = false;

Disable Remind Later Button

If you don't want to show the Remind Later button on the Update form, then just add the following line with the above code.

AutoUpdater.ShowRemindLaterButton = false;

Ignore previous Remind Later or Skip settings

If you want to ignore previously set Remind Later and Skip settings, then you can set Mandatory property to true. It will also hide the Skip and Remind Later button. If you set Mandatory to true in code, then the value of Mandatory in your XML file will be ignored.

AutoUpdater.Mandatory = true;

Forced updates

You can enable forced updates by setting Mandatory property to true and setting UpdateMode to value of Mode.Forced or Mode.ForcedDownload. Mode.Forced option will hide Remind Later, Skip, and Close buttons on the standard update dialog. Mode.ForcedDownload option will skip the standard update dialog and start downloading and updating the application without user interaction. Mode.ForceDownload option will also ignore the value of the OpenDownloadPage flag.

AutoUpdater.Mandatory = true;
AutoUpdater.UpdateMode = Mode.Forced;

Basic Authentication

You can provide Basic Authentication for XML, Update a file, and Change Log as shown in the below code.

BasicAuthentication basicAuthentication = new BasicAuthentication("myUserName", "myPassword");
AutoUpdater.BasicAuthXML = AutoUpdater.BasicAuthDownload = AutoUpdater.BasicAuthChangeLog = basicAuthentication;

Set User-Agent for http web requests

Set the User-Agent string to be used for HTTP web requests so you can differentiate them in your web server request logs.

AutoUpdater.HttpUserAgent = "AutoUpdater";

Enable Error Reporting

You can turn on error reporting by adding the below code. If you do this, AutoUpdater.NET will show an error message if there is no update available or if it can't get to the XML file from the web server.

AutoUpdater.ReportErrors = true;

Run the update process without Administrator privileges

If your application doesn't need administrator privileges to replace the old version, then you can set RunUpdateAsAdmin to false.

AutoUpdater.RunUpdateAsAdmin = false;

Open Download Page

If you don't want to download the latest version of the application and just want to open the URL between url tags of your XML file, then you need to add the following line with the above code.

AutoUpdater.OpenDownloadPage = true;

This kind of scenario is useful if you want to show some information to users before they download the latest version of the application.

Remind Later

If you don't want users to select Remind Later time when they press the Remind Later button of the update dialog, then you need to add the following lines with the above code.

AutoUpdater.LetUserSelectRemindLater = false;
AutoUpdater.RemindLaterTimeSpan = RemindLaterFormat.Days;
AutoUpdater.RemindLaterAt = 2;

In the above example, when a user presses the Remind Later button of the update dialog, It will remind the user for update after 2 days.

Proxy Server

If your XML and Update file can only be used from a certain Proxy Server, then you can use the following settings to tell AutoUpdater.NET to use that proxy. Currently, if your Changelog URL is also restricted to Proxy server, then you should omit the changelog tag from the XML file cause it is not supported using Proxy Server.

var proxy = new WebProxy("ProxyIP:ProxyPort", true)
{
    Credentials = new NetworkCredential("ProxyUserName", "ProxyPassword")
};
AutoUpdater.Proxy = proxy;

Specify where to download the update file

You can specify where you want to download the update file by assigning the DownloadPath field as shown below. It will be used for ZipExtractor too.

AutoUpdater.DownloadPath = Application.StartupPath;

Specify where to extract the zip file containing updated files

If you are using a zip file as an update file, then you can set the "InstallationPath" equal to the path where your app is installed. This is only necessary when your installation directory differs from your executable path. Make s