Question

If we develop certain software and make exe file. Then I find some bug in it and I fix it. Then how to give updates to users? can I send whole exe file again or I make dll files and send dll files which have bugs in it? What to do in case of Java?

Answer 1

For .net, You can use ClickOnce Deployment
but it has a lot of limitations, e.g. you can not change installation location: application goes to appdata folder etc.

What I currently do is have a autoUpdate.exe

1. main app start, start autoUpdate.exe, main app exit
2. autoUpdate.exe check whether have new versions(by compare main app’s
   assembly version or extra version file that only store version like
   2.0.0.1123).
3. If new version found, download and replace main app, pass a no_check argument to main app,start main app.
4. If no new
   versin, also pass a no_check argument to main app,start main app.