Question

In my ClickOnce c# application, how can I tell if the user just updated the application? I would like to offer to show the release notes or the change log after the user has downloaded the update.

I know how I can programmatically (spelling?) detect if an update is available, and manually perform the update. I could show the changelog or release notes then, but I’d like the option to do it after the update, if possible. My Googlefu has failed me.

Answer 1

I’m not sure if there is or isn’t a Framework mechanism for this.

But you may be able to handle this manually yourself. If you or the publishing wizard is updating your Version # for each build, you can store the Version # from the last time the app ran on the machine locally (Registry/AppData/Whatever) and then compare that with your current version #. If the version #’s don’t match you can set the local ‘last run version’ and then display the release notes.

You can fetch the version for app using something like:

private string version
{
    get
    {
        System.Reflection.Assembly _assemblyInfo = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();

        string ourVersion = string.Empty;

        if (System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationDeployment.IsNetworkDeployed)
        {

            ourVersion = ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.CurrentVersion.ToString();
        }
        else
        {
            if (_assemblyInfo != null)
            {
                ourVersion = _assemblyInfo.GetName().Version.ToString();
            }
        }

        return ourVersion;
    }
}