How does an application launcher update itself?

Question

Launchers are most common in games. Think of League of Legends, Starcraft II, or almost any MMO out there. Before starting the actual game, you have a small launcher app that ta

Answer 1

If you are in the .NET world, there is a deployment strategy called 'Click Once'. This was created to solve the problem you have described...

ClickOnce is a deployment technology that allows you to create self-updating Windows-based applications that can be installed and run with minimal user interaction. ClickOnce deployment overcomes three major issues inherent in deployment:

Source: Click Once

Before embarking on this strategy, I suggest researching its pros and cons because there are avid fans and detractors.

Briefly, you upload new versions to a web site (which the application is configured to know about). At start up time, the application checks the site and if there's an update offers the user a dialog. When the user elects to apply the update, the application is stopped and simultaneously a 'click once' component is activated to apply the changes. The component then restarts the executable and this all appears as a seamless operation to the end user...