getting-started/csharp

[giscus[bot]]

getting-started/csharp

Get started with .NET 5+ (cross-platform) or .Net Framework.

https://docs.velopack.io/getting-started/csharp

[liu-super]

For this line, what should I replace there, all releases or a single file?

var mgr = new UpdateManager("https://the.place/you-host/updates");

[caesay]

The URL (https://the.place/you-host/updates) should point to the place you uploaded all of the files produced by vpk pack. For example, https://the.place/you-host/updates/releases.win.json should be a valid URL.

[liu-super]

Wow~ You responded so quickly！thank you very much!

[SebastianDevelops]

I get the below error in my CLI even after being prompted that vpk have successfully installed. I'm running windows 11.

vpk : The term 'vpk' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the
spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:1
+ vpk
+ ~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (vpk:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

[SebastianDevelops]

Sorry, I got the answer in the FAQ:
https://docs.velopack.io/troubleshooting/faq

Thanks.

[bearyung]

Is there any way for the app to simulate the result of UpdateManager?
e.g. I want to get the result in debug mode of my IDE so I can setup the breakpoint and test my UI logic, but the app will throw the below error:

System.Exception: Cannot perform this operation in an application which is not installed.
   at Velopack.UpdateManager.EnsureInstalled() in ./Velopack/UpdateManager.cs:line 442

[bearyung]

Thanks for pointing me to the right direction. mocked IVelopackLocator definitely serve what I need.

[systemzee]

Could you dive into this more? I am attempting to create a IVelopackLocator class and its not working out very well, I need to test this in debug. Sorry very new to C#, only 8 weeks in now so still on the learning curve. I have Velopack working once I publish it, just need to get it in a test/debug state as I implement features for it. BTW wonderful library!

[caesay]

Can you check TestVelopackLocator class and see if that solves your problem? If it doesn't, please feel free to join our Discord and I am happy to help 1 on 1.

[systemzee]

This did the trick, I completely missed seeing this in the docs! Thanks again! you have a donation link? More than willing to help good developers.

[caesay]

There's a donation link on our github repo!

[DrEsteban]

Just to confirm, is the idea that one would manually call the UpdateMyApp() method somewhere in the codebase? (After the call to VelopackApp.Build().Run()?) Or does the Velopack framework use Reflection to automatically call this method? I'm just trying to determine how much of this is "automagic" vs providing an example of how one could accomplish auto-updating.

If it's the latter, are there any other Reflection-based hooks one could specify? In either case, it might be good to clarify this in the docs! Along with recommendations on how/when to invoke the auto update method. (Before or after the Run()?)

[Keboo]

It is the former - nothing is automatic/reflection based. You would place the code from UpdateMyApp() somewhere in your application. That code provides the steps needed to perform the update check, download the update, and then restart the application all at once. However, typically a better UX will provide the user with some level of interaction around these steps. These may include, showing when an update is available, allowing the user to choose when to download the update, and allowing the user to choose when to restart the application.

[DrEsteban]

Thank you!

[MindaugasSakalys]

Hi, does Velopack work with net framework 4.7.2?

[caesay]

Yep, anything later or equal to .Net framework 4.6.2 is supported. Also anything dotnet >= 5.0.

[nabeelbaghoor]

Hey I hope you will help, I need to avoid installiong the app or putting into the programs, or anywhere. I have make an exe of my code which we put into windows autostart, and it keeps running in background with just a process running in task bar. I just need to implement a way so that it can keep updating itself whenever we push to master of github. No need to install it, nothing.

[caesay]

Velopack produces a portable package (YourAppId-Portable.zip) which does not need to be installed and is self-updating. Feel free to extract your app from that zip and place it wherever you'd like.

[nabeelbaghoor]

Hey thanks for quick response. I extracted the .zip, which i exe i need to use as normal, the one inside current folder or the one oputside that. also, there is an Update exe. i don't need to run it right.

[nabeelbaghoor]

for example, if i run the the first exe inside zip (not the one in current folder), it will keep updating itselfg while it will be running whenever i will ask him to do so from code? and to push a new update what i need to do for example from s3. i need to put this zipped folder extracted there? and it my exe will update automatically whenevr it will check s3.

[caesay]

You can run the exe in the root, or the one inside the current folder. Either will do. The one at the root of the portable package is just there to act like a shortcut for the user so it is easier to run your app. You do not need to run Update.exe manually. Please refer to the "Integrating", "Packaging", and "Distributing" documentation for more info on how to update/distribute your app.

[RadJKW]

Using the portable version of the packaged application, mgr.ApplyUpdatesAndRestart(newVersion); has not been able to successfully restarted my application. The application will update and close, requiring me to manually open the app again.

I have the following folder structure where i've placed the extracted contents of the portable zip from the deployment server

📁 C:\
└─📁 MyAppFolder
   │ 📄 MachineConfig.json
   ├ 📁 Offline_Data
   └ 📁 App
      │    📄 MyApp.exe
      │    📄 Update.exe
      │    📄 Velopack.log
      │    📄 .portable
      ├─ 📁 current
      │    📄 dlls
      │    📄 MyApp.exe
      │    📄 other dotnet files
      └─ 📁 packages
         │  📄 MyApp-0.0.5-full.nupkg
         └─ 📁 VelopackTemp

[caesay]

Please make sure you are using the same version of Velopack and vpk. If these two are not the same version you may run into this issue.

[argenisr0117]

I have a .NET Framework Windows Form project (target .NET Framework 4.7.2) and when I tried to publish, I got the following error "error MSB4803: The task "GenerateBootstrapper" is not supported on the .NET Core version of MSBuild. Please use the .NET Framework version of MSBuild. See https://aka.ms/msbuild/MSB4803 for further details. [C:\Projects\CondoSys\CondoSys.Forms\CondoSys.Forms.csproj]" Any suggestions ?

[caesay]

Compile your app using whatever is most ergonomic for you. If you are using legacy/outdated csproj formats, you may not be able to use dotnet.exe to compile your app. Feel free to use msbuild.exe, Visual Studio, or whatever else works or you have been using in the past. Or, even better, update your csproj to the latest SDK-style project format. Once you've compiled your app, just run vpk pack ... -p {path-to-your-build-output} -f net472 to build your Velopack release.

[argenisr0117]

Hey @caesay thanks for your response. Now i'm facing another issue. I have a server and I created a site on IIS (https://mysite.com/). Basically I just created a dummy index page and copied the files that vpack created. When I ran vpk download http --url https://mysite.com/ I got the following:
Downloading release file 'releases.win.json' from 'https://mysite.com/releases.win.json?arch=x64&os=win&rid=win-x64'.
[19:54:41 INF] Found 11 release(s) in remote file
[19:54:41 INF] Downloading CondoSys.Forms-3.0.0-full.nupkg...
[19:54:41 INF] Downloading 'CondoSys.Forms-3.0.0-full.nupkg' from 'https://mysite.com/CondoSys.Forms-3.0.0-full.nupkg'.
[19:54:42 ERR] Response status code does not indicate success: 404 (Not Found)., retrying in 1 second.

It's like the files does not exists but they are in the sites folder..

What am I missing?

Thanks

[caesay]

This is an issue with your IIS configuration and is not related to Velopack, IIS only returns certain known file types by default. If you are struggling with IIS I'd suggest you look into using Azure Storage or Amazon S3 to host your releases, and you can use the vpk upload az or vpk upload s3 command to manage that for you.

[argenisr0117]

Hey @caesay I figured out that the .nupkg MIME TYPE was missing in the configuration of my IIS site. After adding it, it worked. Placing my fix here if somebody has the same issue.

Just go to your ISS site and add this entry in the MIME TYPE confg
File Name extension: .nupkg
MIME TYPE: application/zip.

Another question..
My app is downloading the update but when it close to install the new version, I am getting a "denied access" like the app has no permission to install itself.

Is there any configuration in velopak to grant permissions or I just have to run the app as administrator ?

[caesay]

The documentation comments is not the right place for individual support / questions about your specific integration. The doc comments are mostly for questions which clarify what Velopack is capable of eg. information missing from the docs. For tailored help / ongoing discussion please join our Discord.

[enisn]

I need to add Authorization header to all requests to releases.win.json and .nupkg files. How can I do it in a single point? Does it use HttpClientFactory internally?

[Keboo]

That depends on which source you are using. If you are using a simple Http source, there are two injections points IFileDownloader and IUpdateSource.

The UpdateManager has a constructor that takes in an IUpdateSource as a constructor parameter. If you wanted to control all of the calls for retrieving the manifest and the files this interface is what you would implement for complete control. If, however, you just want to leverage the exiting stuff and only modify some of the HTTP calls (which is sounds like is your use case), you can implement the IFileDownloader interface and pass it to an instance of SimpleWebSource. The easiest way to do this will be to derive from the existing HttpClientFileDownloader and override either the CreateHttpClientHandler or CreateHttpClient. There is an authorization parameter passed to CreateHttpClient, however, the current implementation doesn't pass a value down to it.

[enisn]

Thanks 🙏
Everything is ok but checking relases.*.json json, I've just created a PR for C# SDK that allows extending methods of SimpleWebSource
velopack/velopack#181

[SebastianDevelops]

How do I add a space in the name of my application? I tried My-App-Name, My_App_Name and I tried My%20App%20Name but none of these seemed to work.

[caesay]

You can use --packTitle for your friendly app name.

[ozdmremrekaan]

I am getting this error while trying to pack my app even though I have enough permissions
UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'C:\Users\User02\AppData\Local\Temp\Velopack\temp.1\PreprocessPackDirWin\Prodity.Desktop_ExecutionStub.exe' is denied.

[ozdmremrekaan]

Solved it by turning Off firewall

[caesay]

Rather than turning off your firewall completely, you could add a rule to exclude scanning in %temp%/Velopack

[ozdmremrekaan]

Thanks. Now I am having a different problem, When I try to run the exe that is inside of publish folder it does not open but It is working in release doesnt work.

[wangdasheng360]

Why isn't WithBeforeUninstallFastCallback is called in my app when uninstalling?

[caesay]

The docsite comments are not a place to get support for your application. Check your Velopack logs, and then if you're still having issues please join our Discord for support.

[cesar-albusac]

Hello! I successfully tested on a Demo WinForms App.

However, when I try to add to the production WinForms App, I am not even able to start the app when I add the velopack library and VelopackApp.Build().Run();

No logs, only on the Windows Event Viewer I can see these errors:

Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.
Exception Info: System.IO.FileNotFoundException
   at CMS.Ui.Desktop.CMSDesktopLoader.Main(System.String[])

Faulting application name: OfficeEvolveDesktop.exe, version: 5.9.2407.25155, time stamp: 0xc81ac9a9
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.19041.4717, time stamp: 0x16b0a901
Exception code: 0xe0434352
Fault offset: 0x000000000003b699
Faulting process ID: 0xfb8
Faulting application start time: 0x01db0a762b6cd51e
Faulting application path: C:\PE\onprem\integration\bin\Debug\OfficeEvolveDesktop.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
Report ID: f69f0664-1e79-4251-8431-4c0b3ab2a98d
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

Any ideas? Thanks a million

[cesar-albusac]

I checked if the file C:\Windows\System32\KERNELBASE.dll exists and it does

[caesay]

Add better exception handling, logging, review that your installed application is not missing any required files.

[cesar-albusac]

Thanks, it looks like is something in my production app (.Net version or a 3rd party library)

[cesar-albusac]

I am trying to exclude packaging a folder by using the --exclude paramenter but I am unable to do it .

What am I doing wrong?

vpk pack -u "TestApp" --packVersion 1.1.4 -p . -e MyApp.exe -o C:\OutputPackages --exclude 'Server/.*'

When I install the generated program exe, I see there is a Server folder on it.

[cesar-albusac]

I want to exlude multiple folders apart from the Server one, and also the default pdb files.

[cesar-albusac]

Sorted, ifnoring all these folders:

--exclude '(^|/|\\)(Server|Config.Clean|Data|DataSets|cs|de|es|fr|it|ja|ko|pl|pt-BR|ru|tr|runtimes|Transforms|WebView2|win|zh-Hans|zh-Hant)(/|\\).*'

[vkyamane]

For this line:

var mgr = new UpdateManager("https://the.place/you-host/updates");

When using AWS S3, do I point the object to the .json file that have the releases information? Or is this only available with a public bucket?

[caesay]

The URL you pass in should not contain the releases.channel.json file. It should be one level up, so if https://yoursite.com/updates/releases.channel.json was a valid URL, then you would pass https://yoursite.com/updates to UpdateManager.

[cgilib]

Hi, I am using Visual Studio with .net framework 4.7.2. When I tried to install vpk from "Manage Nuget Package", I got the following error message,

Package 'vpk 0.0.942' has a package type 'DotnetTool' that is not supported by project 'MyApp'.

Was it because I don't have .net installed?

Thanks.

[caesay]

You need to run dotnet tool update -g vpk to install the vpk command line tool, so you will need .net 8 installed for that. The Velopack package is what you should install into your project MyApp.

[cgilib]

Hi, I will install .net 8 and give it a go. Thanks so much.

[Pureaznangel]

In case that we need to upload update folder (Release) to a host, is there any way to protect the update (files, especially portable zipped file) from unauthorized direct link downloading (e.g password protected, encryption ...) ?

[cgilib]

You can enhance the security of the host by using a client certificate. The application code responsible for checking updates should be customized to consistently send the client certificate to the host for authentication.

[Keboo]

This is a bit outside the scope of what the built-in providers give you. Another option depending on how you are hosting the files. You could implement a custom IUpdateSource that you pass to your UpdateManager. You can use the existing sources as references. Your new update source would need to perform any needed authentication for accessing and downloading the updates.

[fan-van]

“Setup Error
An error has occurred: Failed to start application (Therequested operation requires elevation,(os error 740)) . ” I set in the app.manifest, it prompts this error. How can I avoid this prompt?

[caesay]

Velopack does not support applications requiring admin at this time.

[fan-van]

Thank you very much! Is it possible to not show the prompt after the installation is complete?

[caesay]

You will need to remove the admin requirement from your app.manifest, otherwise velopack will not work correctly.

[Pureaznangel]

I found an Extension here: https://github.com/krzysztofautomatyk/VelopackExtension.GoogleDrive/tree/master/VelopackExtension.GoogleDrive has the function to store updated files on google drive. But I read it all the time but don't understand how to use it. Can you give me a simple example code to use it?

Thank you.

[caesay]

This is not an official package. Please contact the author of that library directly.

[Pureaznangel]

Because the folder structure of the software changes a lot when using Velopack, I want to move the folders and files in the red square inside the "Current" folder (my app) in the "Portable Release Folder". Is this possible? And if so, is there any way to do that?

Thank you,

[caesay]

No. Velopack apps are portable (meaning, they can be moved around by the user) but they must maintain this structure.

[Devin-goBILDA]

To preface I am using this in combination with GitHub to host my releases. Is there a good way with Velopack to check if the release that I would like to update to is a GitHub Pre-release? I would like users to be able to toggle a switch that will let them swap back and fourth between this and a regular GitHub Release. (I know i can use channels, but thought this could simplify my workflow)

[caesay]

You can set prerelease to true or false in the GithubSource constructor. If false the source will filter out any prereleases and can act as your "stable" channel.

[Devin-goBILDA]

I remembered seeing something about that a while ago and forgot to double check before I asked. Thank you for helping out!

[cgilib]

Hi,

The vpk tool relies on update.exe but it's not available by simply rebuilding the solution. May I ask where I can get update.exe and files the VPK depends on? I know I can get them by installing the vpk, however I am just wondering if they can be built from the source code like Clowd.Squirrel.

Thanks.

[caesay]

You can compile it with cargo (eg. cargo build --features windows) or you can download it from a recent gh actions build.

[cgilib]

Thank you. I installed Rust and was able to compile and produce update.exe etc.

Now my application is able to download the patches and apply the patches. Just a question about the patch installation, is there a way to pack it so it can be installed silently without asking if I want to replace the older version? I like the way how Clowd.Squirrel installs the patch, no dialog, no background cmd window and just install. Thanks

Regards,

[caesay]

It's not a supported option, as users can do this by mistake and overwrite their install dir. If you have the source code, of course you can make any changes you wish. This comment thread is not the place to discuss modifications, if you have further questions about this please join our Discord or comment on the appropriate github issue.

[cgilib]

Thank you,

The following two lines stops made the application not ask anymore, although the cmd window is still showing in the background but it's much better. By doing this way, we can force the user to run the latest version available.

mgr.WaitExitThenApplyUpdates(null, true, true);
Environment.Exit(0);

[cgilib]

And the cmd window is gone when I run in release mode. Thank you so much.