Auto Updating .NET Applications

We're about to ship the first version of a shrinkwrap .NET application.  We want auto-updating, and need the ability to update different users differently.  So the app launches, collects the username and password and makes a web service call to determine the correct version for this user.  Then it downloads the correct assemblies and starts.  I can't use ZeroTouch or ClickOnce as we use an OCX and want to install a shortcut.

Any suggestions on 3rd party tools to make this easier?  I started with http://windowsforms.net/articles/appupdater.aspx, which is nicely explained, but downloads the updates while the application is running and then restarts.  That doesn't work for our application.  I could hack his code to make it work, but I'd rather buy something. NetDeploy is a possiblity, and people have mentioned dXloader and that InstallShield has this functionality.

Any real world experience out there?

Ted Graham
Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Check out the MS application blocks auto updater:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/updater.asp

Weee
Wednesday, May 12, 2004

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