This tutorial came in clutch. Was just about to wrap up a current winform project and was wondering how to make the installer for it. Now I know, thanks Tim.
Mr. Tim Corey, As a learner and beginner as a C# developer, I am in love with you. I learn a lot from your videos and your way of talking and explaining things is very awesome. Thank you so much for your time which you invest in people like me. May GOD bless you Sir :)
Thank you Tim for such a detailed tutorial. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into your videos. It's the small details you explain which matter the most to me, for example when you explained why the @ is used before a path string.
I have zero experience with ClickOnce MSI or install shield. This is exactly what i have been looking for. A simple explanation of this complicated process in its simplest form. I now have a foundation to move forward and learn other techniques.Thanks!
It's nice and uncommon that You take care of the recordings that you posted some time ago. Thank you for the time and energy You put into promoting knowledge.
wow you save me! from clickonce, now I can deploy my apps using sql ccmpact edition and cryptography that click once does not support! Thank you for this amazing material.
Are you still going to make the future video showing how to automate this? As well as showing an example of how to do it through a different server, thank you for the amazing content !
Great tutorial. It would be great if you could show the next level with the automation of all those processes. However it is a good point to start. Thanks.
Hello Tim again, I just wanted to thank you very much for your videos... I asked you on the video of SQLite demo video about a problem I get in deployment, but now with Squirrel, it is solved... So, Thank YOU A LOOOOOT! GREAT WORK SIR!!!
Very nice lecture Tim . Crysp and clear. And i dont know anything about deployment and even Release also in visual studio. I am the basic beginner. And I could understood in clear way. Will be waiting for you next video about Releasing to the GITHUB and autoupdate from GITHUB..
You have helped me at work, school and even in personal projects. Thanks so much for these excellent videos! I am a much more competent programmer thanks to you :)
This video is...AWESOME!!! The way you explain everything step by step is incredible. I have a lot of question, actually..a lot of requirements but I'm pretty sure I will find answers on your videos!!! Thank you so much!!!
Great video. Thanks for the heads up on such an application (Squirrel that is) existing. It appears it will solve the install issue I have for a widely used corporate application.
Amazing video Tim! Thanks for all your useful delivery on this video. Now, the next step would be maybe to give the user the choice to update or not the software version and make an automatic restart if so.
Excellent Tim. It was just what I was looking for. Look forward to see the automated process. Although, as long as it is for a simple and small app I would rather do it manually. Next Time, show us how to place an icon for the app.
A part two on the build automation side would be nice also Tim. i.e how to automate the manual steps at the end i.e. moving the folders to the temp folder etc. Do you plan to do a next version?
Tim you made my day with this implementation. It is clean and as you mention, predictable and I'd say customizable and most important of all, it can be automated MUCH MUCH easier than a clickonce app. thanks for this great video. BTW. This worked like a charm on a WPF app.
Excellent and completely understandable tutorial! I tried it on a sample app and it just works as you described. I’m building an app that needs to be shared and users by a few people in our company. This may be the way as long as people don’t object to the automatic updates. Remains to be seen. The way you drilled down to grab the version number was a feat in database acrobatics and I’m not sure how I would have found it otherwise. Very much interested in a follow up video showing more advanced usage and automation. Thanks again!
0:00 - Intro 1:12 - What we are going to do in this video 3:40 - What is Squirrel 7:02 - Squirrel GitHub page 8:43 - Squirrel NuGet reference 9:30 - Automatic application updates update check 15:55 - Assembly version changes 17:47 - Creating custom NuGet Package 27:04 - Installing the application 29:05 - Running the installed app and fixing bugs 33:49 - Updating the application code 37:06 - Releasing the updates 43:06 - Recap 45:20 - Summary and concluding remarks
Hi. EDIT: Solved: Don't forget to give your Application a Title in the NuGet Explorer. Otherwise it won't show up. lol I have a little Problem: I wrote a little, useless App (400KB) to try this out. Basicly 3 buttons, 1 shows an Info Message Box, 2 opens a URL and 3 closes the Application. I made it as a WPF Solution. I put some Code in the AssemblyInfo (Version) and of course into MainWindow.xaml and MainWindow.xaml.cs. Everything works fine, I was able to put the App onto a Share and the DevTeam could receive it via Setup.exe and the new Version updated automaticly - Good Tutorial, Super easy, Great Job Tim! Now my Problem is that none of us can uninstall the App correctly. We have to delete the folders in order to get rid of the App. I couldn't figure out why that is. Any ideas?
@@IAmTimCorey I forgot to put a Title. It was the reason why it didn't appear in Programs and Features. In Apps and Features I found a nameless program with the same size as the exe. Then I put a Title and was able to uninstall it in programs and features too. Thanks for your reply :)
Good video, thanks. ClickOnce works pretty well in large enterprises where network storage is plentiful and easy to access. Small business clients with less robust infrastructure, however, are not very well-served by ClickOnce. The great thing about Squirrel is it looks like the FileDownloader class accepts a System.Net.WebClient object. This means that you can place the setup files on a password-protected web-facing server, even something simple like Apache. Because you can pass credentials with the WebClient object, Squirrel should have no problems accessing the files despite the password, something that ClickOnce unfortunately could not do. Thanks again for the great video.
I've always just used the installer project in Visual Studio. Despite no longer being one of the default project types, you can still download it as a VS extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace. Squirrel does sound interesting though and I'll definitely check it out.
Yeah, I've struggled with that one over the years. It keeps getting bumped around and it is messy to work with. I almost did a video on it but decided squirrel is a much easier tool to configure and use for updating and it fits most use cases.
Microsoft can be extremely short sighted when it comes to basic common sense things. "Here's a great tool to build software but we're not going to give you any tools to distribute or install it once you've built it."
Yeah, I'm not sure the logic behind not including the installer. I'm guessing it has to do with not being their core focus but even so, they let their partnerships slide. It may be because they want the marketplace to fill this particular spot but it does seem like a rather important part to fill.
This is exactly the tool that I needed for an application I am developing. Getting my users the new versions of my program can be challenging. The background updating is awesome. I am really looking forward to your future video showing the automatic releasing. I am wondering what happens if the new program files not are all downloaded before the main program is closed? What if the user only has the program open for a few seconds and the network connection is slow? A second question would be what happens if I am over writing the setup files while users program is trying to use them? Will that file be locked out somehow and be unable to be copied over?
Good questions. For the first, if you don't get the entire thing downloaded (unusual since it is a diff, not the full application), it will re-download the file. I'm not sure it will pick up where it left off in the download or not. It might. Either way, it will just work and not cause an issue. The second question was something I should have addressed in the video. There are no problems with locked files because it puts the application in a new folder (using the version number). Then, when you restart the application, it launches the new exe in the new location. It only keeps the previous version of your application so don't worry about hundreds of applications being on disk.
@@IAmTimCorey Thanks for the reply Tim! To clarify my second question: The step after "releasifying" using Squirrel 41:20, you copy the output files from releases and paste them over the "network location files" 42:05. Will this interfere with a user's outdated application which is trying to download the new files (maybe using "Releases" or "Setup.exe" or "Setup.ini") when I paste those files. Additionally, what if some files are copied but others are not when the user's outdated application wants to check for updates (some kind of strange race-like condition)? Could we use the Task object to monitor the result of the update check and be sure that after awaiting the task, Task.Status = TaskStatus.RanToCompletion of something like this?
Nice video Tim and thank you for sharing this valuable information as always. I have a simple question and it is as follows: does it triggers Microsoft Windows Smartscreen if it is shared to other Windows platforms? Thank you in advance!
@@IAmTimCorey : I have a small question- Installer automatically installing application in C:\ Programfile \ . Can we modify setup in a way that it will prompt user to enter Installation location. For example user wants to install in D:\programfile. . Thanks in Advance :)
Sorry Tim I had to take a break due to the upcoming election. Been working my tail off with that plus my full time job been keeping me busy. Will get back to it after November 6
ClickOnce is a great tool. This takes things to the next level by being better about errors (ClickOnce does not have a great story around telling the user there has been a problem) and it also fixes some other quirks around ClickOnce. Squirrel also does not need to be used for a .NET application. You could deploy practically anything with Squirrel (Word documents, for example or a Java application).
Thank you so much Tim for your many helpful videos. I just learnt about you recently through youtube search and your videos have been incredibly helpful. I am actually new into programming generally and even more so with the c# Lang. Please I want to know if you have a video on winforms software licensing and protection. If not please kindly do a video about that. You can as well point me to any good resources that might be helpful for me to understand and make good choices. I am working on a VSTO Word Add-in, which is how I normally choose to do my learning and I believe the methods of deployment & security applies across all projects that are .Net. Again, thanks.
Check out this video that I made to help folks plan their training. ua-cam.com/video/LUv20QxXjfw/v-deo.html. Also, you can check out my whole channel and playlists here - ua-cam.com/channels/-ptWR16ITQyYOglXyQmpzw.html
Very nice tutorial! Thanks. I don't know if you already have an update video with app elevation... sign a certificate inside of the Nuget Package Explorer... Multiple executables in lib et45 folder... (a sqirrel-aware app) etc. Normally a app is more complicate... :-)
Squirrel isn't designed for overly complex applications like that. That isn't a typical use case. In that case, you would want a more complicated installer to go with your more complicated setup.
Good tutorial! Off topic -> I'd like to know whether Desktop application development is a good Field out there in the industry? Like, will I be able to go for a highly paid salary?
@mike m.: Really? Is there any WYSIWYG app development environment targeting the browser/JavaScript that is as simple and effective as WinForms in Visual Studio? It's a serious question.
I hear this a lot, which is funny because I also rub shoulders with a lot of consultants. For example, at the Microsoft MVP conference this past year, a question was raised about which desktop UI was most prevalent. WinForms won hands down (80%+). When I ask about desktop vs. web, the responses are mixed. A lot of companies have desktop apps and a lot of startups are creating desktop apps. The reason people think desktop is dead is because they forget that there is more out there than just small shops trying to get their product to a large market. Enterprises especially use a LOT of desktop applications. Think of all of the applications on your computer. Most of them are desktop apps (Office, Visual Studio, SSMS, Audacity, Beyond Compare, WebStorm, Notepad++, flux, and more are just a few of the ones I use daily). Web apps are great for distribution but desktop apps still beat them out for power, ease of development, offline capabilities, and more. Here is my advice: learn C# really well (the language, not the user interfaces to it). People often think that C# is a UI. It isn't. The UI uses C#. If you are skilled just in a UI, you will always struggle. If you are skilled in C#, you will do well no matter what UI you end up working with. Most companies don't care as much about your UI of choice as they do your skill level with C#. That is where the real work gets done.
A quick look on Monster.ca proves that isn't true. There are a couple jobs in just the first page of the search that are for C# desktop developers. Web development is a big deal because of the perceived lack of expense for the reach. However, these statements like desktop development being "dead" are just not true. Like I said, learn C#. The UI doesn't really matter. You want to do all of your examples in MVC? Go ahead. It will be a lot more setup work but you can do it. Anyone who throws out a good tool because another is also good is foolish. Take advantage of both tools. Don't just throw out one for the other.
This is awesome, thanks for sharing. This seems like a silly question, but I assume it's best to make 1.0.2 from the 1.0.1 .nupkg file (so the delta only shows the difference between these two), rather than making 1.0.2 from the 1.0.0 file again (which I gather would show all the differences from the very first release). Edit: new problem, noticed that every release I make, even if I made no change to the database file wipes the database on the updated end. Can see this between 42:45 - 42:50. Probably more a conundrum if the database structure itself needs modifying. Guessing fixing this requires accessing the AppData folder to grab any existing user-entered data and re-inserting it after the Squirrel update.
As for the versioning, you don't build from the nupkg file, you build from the source so I'm not tracking how it went from 1.0.0 to 1.0.2. The source changed so we changed the nupkg file. As for the database, yes, this is not an ideal way to deploy a database unless it was used for caching (and an update would wipe your cache). If you wanted to save data between versions, you would need to include update scripts instead of the database.
This looks like more work than InstallShield and I generally prefer to pay for software if I'm going to need to rely on it to produce commercial apps. I want to be able to pay for support and updates and know I'll get both.
Fair enough. I tend to show solutions for free versions of things so as not to limit my audience. I also don't want people to think that the only way they get good products is through paid applications. However, there are a lot of good paid solutions out there. Also, support and updates are definitely important to commercial apps. Good points.
Another great video Tim! Thank You! However, to all your viewers who may consider using Squirrel, IT DOES NOT WORK FOR CONSOLE PROGRAMS. Just hope I can save someone else hours of troubleshooting in case they primarily build console apps.
@@IAmTimCorey My first try was a console app too. I could install it, however it failed to execute all the time. Then I made little useless WPF App wich works, but I can't uninstall it
I’m not finding any follow up videos where you go more in depth, such as using a URL for the update location. Did you ever make any update videos? -Thanks.
I tried using URL from IIS Server and failed with 404 error but works perfectly if i try local path. Please if u have any video on URL kindly notify me. Thanks
I don't agree with what you said about at the beginning. Squirrel installer is harder to manage in larger enterprise environment. Also remember that the most common best practice for those environments is to disable automatic updates. Still, great tutorial : )
Thanks for super clear video, in my case it failed and I cannot get the Squirrel -releasify step to work I get many ‘System.Exception: Failed to modify resources’ errors. I think I will go back and see if I can get the ClickOnce to work.
I would check the folder permissions and change to a local folder temporarily to test to see if that fixes the issue. It might be a pathing issue or a permissions issue.
I know this video is a year old, but I do want to point out, it appears you are using the file version to display and not the assembly version. I know you change both whenever you build, but yeah.
Hey, the video was really helpful. I'd like to make it even better by automating the tasks you mentioned. I looked for the follow-up video but couldn't find it. Are there any updates on this?
Great content... I love it. However, I realized that when you make the update, the data of the prior version in the application is lost with the new update. How can one fix this??
Yep, the idea here would be the database is a temp storage that is ok to overwrite. If you don't want to do this, you would need to either not deploy the database with the updates or you would need to have some type of programmatic check on if the database should be upgraded/migrated.
For example me I don't overwrite the database, if I made some changes in the database (new columns, tables, triggers ...) I write a script in the first form to check if this db have those tables or columns, here's an example of me checking if a table exists; string sqlTable1 = "IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_NAME='table1') " + " CREATE TABLE table1( " + " rowid int IDENTITY(1, 1) NOT NULL, " + " datec datetime2(0) DEFAULT GETDATE(), " + " dateo datetime2 NULL, " + " ref nvarchar(255) NULL, " + " CONSTRAINT PK_llx_saisie_caisse_rowid PRIMARY KEY(rowid) " + " )"; SqlCommand cmdTable1 = new SqlCommand(sqlTable1 , cnx); cmdTable1.ExecuteNonQuery();
and you just got data loss.. "Jane Smith" is missing after the silent update. So better don't ship the database with the executable and instead let it be created if nessecary. Btw how can you implement a db update script with squirrel?
Yeah, I forgot to mention that. The bundling should not have included the database or the database should have been set not to overwrite. I'll add update scripts as a suggestion for the next squirrel video.
Sir can you please make a video on best way to give trials of actual software , Serial keys or date based verification can be bypassed anything that can work more better ?
I read through the comments to this video but didn't see an answer to my question so I will ask it... How do you go about deploying updates without overwriting the SQLite database? In the video example, you added a person (leaving 2 people in the database), deployed the update, then ran the program again reverting back to a single person in the list. Obviously, we want the users to not have to start over from scratch when deploying an update such as adding the version number to the title. Thanks!
Good question and it is something I wish I had remembered to cover in the video. I'll be covering it in another video. You have to make some tweaks to the installer.
Nice video easy to understand, Can we update the database file especially if it's a SQLServer database, and also what if we use the application as a network version where we have the database stored on the server, or is that to much to ask for from this free tool.
You mean keep the same version but have newer code? That isn't something you should do. If you make code changes, you should change the version and make a new deployment. Even for a bug fix.
@@IAmTimCorey By config file I meant the Properties.Settings which my program uses to save and load data, but after every update it resets everything. I just want to exclude saved data from updating.
Just wondering how this is better than ClickOnce. I was able to get ClickOnce deployment with self-updating from intranet site working perfectly. The only downsides with ClickOnce are inability to create Test vs Prod versions of the same application and when an update is forced via the minimum required version, it cannot be easily reverted (without publishing another new version and incrementing the minimum required version again). What was it about ClickOnce that made you go down this path?
There are a couple things, including the fact that ClickOnce seems to be touchy. Rollback is easy, no UAC is nice, background updates, easy package creation and hosting, and a lot more. The bottom line is it felt simpler with more power vs. ClickOnce. That isn't a knock on ClickOnce though. If you find it works for you, I don't see any reason to switch.
Great video, as always... You have used SQLite DB for database storage which makes it easy to update the database structure... Is there a way to update the sql server database for any changes that have been made in the SQL Database Project.... e.g. If I have added a new table and some stored procedures to the SQL Project, is there a way to check whether the database structure has been changed and make the necessary changes to the deployed database...
That's a bummer! That was a great project. It will still continue to work with existing projects and should be fine for long-term use but I'll have to work on some alternate options.
Hello Tim, A great tutorial as always, Squirrel however doesn't support .Net Core as far as I know.. Is that true? and is there a work around or an alternative?
Squirrel doesn't really care about .NET types. It is a .NET Framework installer, meaning that is what powers it, but it can install pretty much anything. You can install .NET Core projects or even Java projects with Squirrel.
If only that person other day new who Tim Corey was he wouldnt question your programming skills nice tutorial needing this myself for a dekstop app that goes out to 8 clients how does one use this for updates as well is their a way to tell it not to overwrite the users app.config
The easiest thing to do is store the changeable settings in something other than app.config. I believe by default it overwrites the app.config each time but I'm not certain. The other option would be to do some scripting to handle avoiding the overwrite.
GitHub isn't really a file hosting location. You might be able to make it work but that isn't what it is designed to do. You really want a web host for that.
Hi Tim, this is a great video. It answer all my question about creating installer and version updated. I have one problem here. I simply put my application setting into files. And this squirrel update process will created new version folder, which make me lost my setting files in old version folder. Do you have any idea to solve my problem? I have in mind to put my setting file in different directory, but i don't know where to put it. thanks for sharing
You would probably need to write some code to move your files into a different location and then only create them if they don't exist. As for where, that would be up to you.
it seems, that for an automatic update, you must not change the second number in the version number. For example changing 1.1.1 to 1.1.2 works fine, but 1.1.1 to 1.2.0 does not.
Hi Tim, Great video! Do you have any recommendations for a WPF project that calls on some separate python scripts, where the end user wouldn't have python installed already? Or any recommended videos?
Thanks Tim, this very helpful. My questions are: what about prerequisites? I mean most apps have reports like crystal report or sql server express..etc. and also i usually write a code to execute the script.sql of the database on installation by reading it from a copy i add to the project files. and adding license to the app and certificate and manifest?. are these issues available on squirrel? thanks again and great job :)
Mostly not. Squirrel tries to tackle the 80% scenarios. If you have client-side configuration changes you need to make, you probably need a different installation solution (or you need to execute a script after the installation). Typically, you don't need to write to a database or run custom scripts after an installation. That doesn't mean you don't, it just means that scenario is in the 20% that Squirrel didn't attempt to address. That is where a more full-featured installation will be needed.
That really is outside the purpose of Squirrel. Its goals are to be fast, silent, and not pop up a UAC dialog on installation. Trying to specify a different location for installation could cause the UAC dialog or it could not exist or you would have to prompt the user. All of these options violate the goals of Squirrel. If you really need a different location, Squirrel isn't the right installation package for you. Here is a bit more on that subject: github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows/pull/1067
Thank you and congratulations on 40k subscribers. It feels awesome when I say I'm one of your first subscribers. :)
Thanks!
This tutorial came in clutch. Was just about to wrap up a current winform project and was wondering how to make the installer for it. Now I know, thanks Tim.
Awesome!
Great tutorial! Feel guilty that I can only leave 1 thumbs up for all the work you put into this. Thank you
You are most welcome. Thanks for watching.
Mr. Tim Corey, As a learner and beginner as a C# developer, I am in love with you. I learn a lot from your videos and your way of talking and explaining things is very awesome. Thank you so much for your time which you invest in people like me. May GOD bless you Sir :)
I appreciate the kind words.
Thank you Tim for such a detailed tutorial. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into your videos. It's the small details you explain which matter the most to me, for example when you explained why the @ is used before a path string.
I appreciate that!
I have zero experience with ClickOnce MSI or install shield. This is exactly what i have been looking for. A simple explanation of this complicated process in its simplest form. I now have a foundation to move forward and learn other techniques.Thanks!
Excellent!
It's nice and uncommon that You take care of the recordings that you posted some time ago. Thank you for the time and energy You put into promoting knowledge.
You're very welcome.
wow you save me! from clickonce, now I can deploy my apps using sql ccmpact edition and cryptography that click once does not support! Thank you for this amazing material.
Glad it helped!
Are you still going to make the future video showing how to automate this? As well as showing an example of how to do it through a different server, thank you for the amazing content !
Learned some thing very useful.This thing is good man. Plus dapper video was also helpful.
I am glad you learned something new.
Great tutorial. It would be great if you could show the next level with the automation of all those processes. However it is a good point to start. Thanks.
It is on the suggestion list. I'm glad you enjoyed the video.
I agree. This was great but I’m on the lookout for the next level of automation and feature usage. Thanks!
Magnificent explanation. I didn't know about squirrel but i will have it in account in the future.
Great!
Hello Tim again,
I just wanted to thank you very much for your videos... I asked you on the video of SQLite demo video about a problem I get in deployment, but now with Squirrel, it is solved... So, Thank YOU A LOOOOOT! GREAT WORK SIR!!!
Excellent!
Great tutorial, looking forward to more advance tutorial
Thank you!
Very nice lecture Tim . Crysp and clear. And i dont know anything about deployment and even Release also in visual studio. I am the basic beginner. And I could understood in clear way. Will be waiting for you next video about Releasing to the GITHUB and autoupdate from GITHUB..
Thanks!
Great, easy to understand and clear video about squirrel. Awesome!
Thank you!
You have helped me at work, school and even in personal projects. Thanks so much for these excellent videos! I am a much more competent programmer thanks to you :)
You're very welcome!
This video is...AWESOME!!! The way you explain everything step by step is incredible. I have a lot of question, actually..a lot of requirements but I'm pretty sure I will find answers on your videos!!! Thank you so much!!!
You are most welcome. Thanks for watching.
Thanks Tim. I love Squirrel.
You are welcome.
Great video. Thanks for the heads up on such an application (Squirrel that is) existing. It appears it will solve the install issue I have for a widely used corporate application.
Excellent!
It's been a while since this video was made -- do you still recommend Squirrel, and is it still being supported?
Amazing video Tim! Thanks for all your useful delivery on this video. Now, the next step would be maybe to give the user the choice to update or not the software version and make an automatic restart if so.
Excellent Tim. It was just what I was looking for. Look forward to see the automated process. Although, as long as it is for a simple and small app I would rather do it manually. Next Time, show us how to place an icon for the app.
Yep, I can do that.
A part two on the build automation side would be nice also Tim. i.e how to automate the manual steps at the end i.e. moving the folders to the temp folder etc. Do you plan to do a next version?
I added it to Tim's list for topics to consider. Thanks for recommending it.
Many thanks, Corey! As always, you are such a big help!
You are welcome.
Tim you made my day with this implementation. It is clean and as you mention, predictable and I'd say customizable and most important of all, it can be automated MUCH MUCH easier than a clickonce app. thanks for this great video.
BTW. This worked like a charm on a WPF app.
You are most welcome. Thanks for watching.
Your videos are my favorite, you're an amazing tutor.
I appreciate the kind words.
I enjoyed Inno Setup, But will try Squirrel this week. Thank you
Have fun!
Excellent and completely understandable tutorial! I tried it on a sample app and it just works as you described. I’m building an app that needs to be shared and users by a few people in our company. This may be the way as long as people don’t object to the automatic updates. Remains to be seen. The way you drilled down to grab the version number was a feat in database acrobatics and I’m not sure how I would have found it otherwise. Very much interested in a follow up video showing more advanced usage and automation. Thanks again!
You are welcome.
0:00 - Intro
1:12 - What we are going to do in this video
3:40 - What is Squirrel
7:02 - Squirrel GitHub page
8:43 - Squirrel NuGet reference
9:30 - Automatic application updates update check
15:55 - Assembly version changes
17:47 - Creating custom NuGet Package
27:04 - Installing the application
29:05 - Running the installed app and fixing bugs
33:49 - Updating the application code
37:06 - Releasing the updates
43:06 - Recap
45:20 - Summary and concluding remarks
Thank you kind sir!
Really it's a Great content... Thank You very Very much tim.
Thanks for trusting Tim for your training.
Super awesome Tim. Thank you
Glad you enjoyed it
As always, great tutorial. Thanks.
You are most welcome. Thanks for watching.
Thank you so much. Clear and complete.
You are welcome.
Just one like button is not enough, it should be 1,000,000. Thank you, Tim.
You are most welcome. Thanks for watching.
Hello and thanks for this very clair video :)
You are welcome.
This is fantastic. Thanks!
You are most welcome. Thanks for watching.
Thank you so much! You are a life saver
You're welcome!
Hi.
EDIT: Solved: Don't forget to give your Application a Title in the NuGet Explorer. Otherwise it won't show up. lol
I have a little Problem:
I wrote a little, useless App (400KB) to try this out. Basicly 3 buttons, 1 shows an Info Message Box, 2 opens a URL and 3 closes the Application. I made it as a WPF Solution. I put some Code in the AssemblyInfo (Version) and of course into MainWindow.xaml and MainWindow.xaml.cs.
Everything works fine, I was able to put the App onto a Share and the DevTeam could receive it via Setup.exe and the new Version updated automaticly - Good Tutorial, Super easy, Great Job Tim!
Now my Problem is that none of us can uninstall the App correctly. We have to delete the folders in order to get rid of the App. I couldn't figure out why that is. Any ideas?
It should be that you just go to Apps and Features and uninstall it. Maybe their is a quirk about your permissions or something?
@@IAmTimCorey I forgot to put a Title. It was the reason why it didn't appear in Programs and Features. In Apps and Features I found a nameless program with the same size as the exe. Then I put a Title and was able to uninstall it in programs and features too. Thanks for your reply :)
Helped me so much!!!! Thanks.
You're welcome!
Thank you for video. You helped me much.
You are welcome.
Good video, thanks. ClickOnce works pretty well in large enterprises where network storage is plentiful and easy to access. Small business clients with less robust infrastructure, however, are not very well-served by ClickOnce. The great thing about Squirrel is it looks like the FileDownloader class accepts a System.Net.WebClient object. This means that you can place the setup files on a password-protected web-facing server, even something simple like Apache. Because you can pass credentials with the WebClient object, Squirrel should have no problems accessing the files despite the password, something that ClickOnce unfortunately could not do.
Thanks again for the great video.
You are most welcome. Thanks for watching.
Great Tim!...Thanks a lot
You are welcome.
Really helpfull tutorial! Thanks!
You are welcome.
thanks Tim!!
You are welcome.
I've always just used the installer project in Visual Studio. Despite no longer being one of the default project types, you can still download it as a VS extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace. Squirrel does sound interesting though and I'll definitely check it out.
Yabba Dabba Does the installer project do everything that squirrel is doing here?
Yeah, I've struggled with that one over the years. It keeps getting bumped around and it is messy to work with. I almost did a video on it but decided squirrel is a much easier tool to configure and use for updating and it fits most use cases.
Microsoft can be extremely short sighted when it comes to basic common sense things. "Here's a great tool to build software but we're not going to give you any tools to distribute or install it once you've built it."
Yeah, I'm not sure the logic behind not including the installer. I'm guessing it has to do with not being their core focus but even so, they let their partnerships slide. It may be because they want the marketplace to fill this particular spot but it does seem like a rather important part to fill.
This is enormously helpful! Thanks very much, with a question: does signing one's application affect any part of this?
Again, thanks!
I use Inno Setup for quick deployment. Only for basic stuff though. Alot simpler than anything else i've seen on windows
Thanks for the suggestion. It is one of the things on my list to cover one of these days.
thanx a lot Tim
You are welcome!
Great Stuff!
Thanks!
This is exactly the tool that I needed for an application I am developing. Getting my users the new versions of my program can be challenging. The background updating is awesome.
I am really looking forward to your future video showing the automatic releasing.
I am wondering what happens if the new program files not are all downloaded before the main program is closed? What if the user only has the program open for a few seconds and the network connection is slow?
A second question would be what happens if I am over writing the setup files while users program is trying to use them? Will that file be locked out somehow and be unable to be copied over?
Good questions. For the first, if you don't get the entire thing downloaded (unusual since it is a diff, not the full application), it will re-download the file. I'm not sure it will pick up where it left off in the download or not. It might. Either way, it will just work and not cause an issue.
The second question was something I should have addressed in the video. There are no problems with locked files because it puts the application in a new folder (using the version number). Then, when you restart the application, it launches the new exe in the new location. It only keeps the previous version of your application so don't worry about hundreds of applications being on disk.
@@IAmTimCorey Thanks for the reply Tim!
To clarify my second question: The step after "releasifying" using Squirrel 41:20, you copy the output files from releases and paste them over the "network location files" 42:05. Will this interfere with a user's outdated application which is trying to download the new files (maybe using "Releases" or "Setup.exe" or "Setup.ini") when I paste those files.
Additionally, what if some files are copied but others are not when the user's outdated application wants to check for updates (some kind of strange race-like condition)? Could we use the Task object to monitor the result of the update check and be sure that after awaiting the task, Task.Status = TaskStatus.RanToCompletion of something like this?
Nice video Tim and thank you for sharing this valuable information as always. I have a simple question and it is as follows: does it triggers Microsoft Windows Smartscreen if it is shared to other Windows platforms? Thank you in advance!
Excellent video, Tim! Do you have any tutorials on how to develop a licensing component for an app? And if the license is invalid the app won't open?
I don't have a video like that. Please add it to the list on the suggestion site so others can vote on it as well: suggestions.iamtimcorey.com/
it was a good session. Thank you so much. One qq, how does it work in the LAN?
Thanks Alot for helpful video.
You are welcome.
@@IAmTimCorey : I have a small question- Installer automatically installing application in C:\ Programfile \ . Can we modify setup in a way that it will prompt user to enter Installation location. For example user wants to install in D:\programfile. . Thanks in Advance :)
Sorry Tim I had to take a break due to the upcoming election. Been working my tail off with that plus my full time job been keeping me busy. Will get back to it after November 6
Understandable. Thanks for helping out with the election.
Honestly , I don’t see how is that easier and better than clickonce because you can make clickonce silent also, but at least I learned something new.
ClickOnce is a great tool. This takes things to the next level by being better about errors (ClickOnce does not have a great story around telling the user there has been a problem) and it also fixes some other quirks around ClickOnce. Squirrel also does not need to be used for a .NET application. You could deploy practically anything with Squirrel (Word documents, for example or a Java application).
Dinosaurs used to create installers with Inno Setup
Thank you so much Tim for your many helpful videos. I just learnt about you recently through youtube search and your videos have been incredibly helpful. I am actually new into programming generally and even more so with the c# Lang. Please I want to know if you have a video on winforms software licensing and protection. If not please kindly do a video about that. You can as well point me to any good resources that might be helpful for me to understand and make good choices. I am working on a VSTO Word Add-in, which is how I normally choose to do my learning and I believe the methods of deployment & security applies across all projects that are .Net. Again, thanks.
Check out this video that I made to help folks plan their training. ua-cam.com/video/LUv20QxXjfw/v-deo.html. Also, you can check out my whole channel and playlists here - ua-cam.com/channels/-ptWR16ITQyYOglXyQmpzw.html
@@IAmTimCorey okay. I will do that right away. Thanks.
Any update on the video where we put our updates on a web server somewhere? Or maybe Azure storage accounts?
Hey there, did you ever get around to posting the automation tutorial mentioned around @8:00
Not yet. It is still on the list.
@@IAmTimCorey Hello! great tutorial, is it still on the list? or it was posted time ago?. however thanks you so much :)
Very nice tutorial! Thanks. I don't know if you already have an update video with app elevation... sign a certificate inside of the Nuget Package Explorer... Multiple executables in lib
et45 folder... (a sqirrel-aware app) etc. Normally a app is more complicate... :-)
Squirrel isn't designed for overly complex applications like that. That isn't a typical use case. In that case, you would want a more complicated installer to go with your more complicated setup.
Good tutorial!
Off topic -> I'd like to know whether Desktop application development is a good Field out there in the industry? Like, will I be able to go for a highly paid salary?
@mike m.: Really? Is there any WYSIWYG app development environment targeting the browser/JavaScript that is as simple and effective as WinForms in Visual Studio? It's a serious question.
I hear this a lot, which is funny because I also rub shoulders with a lot of consultants. For example, at the Microsoft MVP conference this past year, a question was raised about which desktop UI was most prevalent. WinForms won hands down (80%+). When I ask about desktop vs. web, the responses are mixed. A lot of companies have desktop apps and a lot of startups are creating desktop apps. The reason people think desktop is dead is because they forget that there is more out there than just small shops trying to get their product to a large market. Enterprises especially use a LOT of desktop applications. Think of all of the applications on your computer. Most of them are desktop apps (Office, Visual Studio, SSMS, Audacity, Beyond Compare, WebStorm, Notepad++, flux, and more are just a few of the ones I use daily). Web apps are great for distribution but desktop apps still beat them out for power, ease of development, offline capabilities, and more.
Here is my advice: learn C# really well (the language, not the user interfaces to it). People often think that C# is a UI. It isn't. The UI uses C#. If you are skilled just in a UI, you will always struggle. If you are skilled in C#, you will do well no matter what UI you end up working with. Most companies don't care as much about your UI of choice as they do your skill level with C#. That is where the real work gets done.
A quick look on Monster.ca proves that isn't true. There are a couple jobs in just the first page of the search that are for C# desktop developers. Web development is a big deal because of the perceived lack of expense for the reach. However, these statements like desktop development being "dead" are just not true. Like I said, learn C#. The UI doesn't really matter. You want to do all of your examples in MVC? Go ahead. It will be a lot more setup work but you can do it. Anyone who throws out a good tool because another is also good is foolish. Take advantage of both tools. Don't just throw out one for the other.
Nonsense Mike. You need to get out more and see what's going on in the world.
Super helpful video Tim. Does this work with UWP apps?
No, UWP apps are a different animal. You would need to use MSIX to deploy those.
Awesome!!!
Thanks!
This is awesome, thanks for sharing. This seems like a silly question, but I assume it's best to make 1.0.2 from the 1.0.1 .nupkg file (so the delta only shows the difference between these two), rather than making 1.0.2 from the 1.0.0 file again (which I gather would show all the differences from the very first release).
Edit: new problem, noticed that every release I make, even if I made no change to the database file wipes the database on the updated end. Can see this between 42:45 - 42:50. Probably more a conundrum if the database structure itself needs modifying. Guessing fixing this requires accessing the AppData folder to grab any existing user-entered data and re-inserting it after the Squirrel update.
As for the versioning, you don't build from the nupkg file, you build from the source so I'm not tracking how it went from 1.0.0 to 1.0.2. The source changed so we changed the nupkg file. As for the database, yes, this is not an ideal way to deploy a database unless it was used for caching (and an update would wipe your cache). If you wanted to save data between versions, you would need to include update scripts instead of the database.
This looks like more work than InstallShield and I generally prefer to pay for software if I'm going to need to rely on it to produce commercial apps. I want to be able to pay for support and updates and know I'll get both.
Fair enough. I tend to show solutions for free versions of things so as not to limit my audience. I also don't want people to think that the only way they get good products is through paid applications. However, there are a lot of good paid solutions out there. Also, support and updates are definitely important to commercial apps. Good points.
What's the alternative now that Squirrel.Windows is dead and doesn't work properly with .NET Core anyway?
I touch on that in my new video - ua-cam.com/video/zjVgQNfAEOs/v-deo.html
Thanks!
You are welcome.
Another great video Tim! Thank You!
However, to all your viewers who may consider using Squirrel, IT DOES NOT WORK FOR CONSOLE PROGRAMS. Just hope I can save someone else hours of troubleshooting in case they primarily build console apps.
Interesting. How exactly does it fail to support console apps? It supports non-.NET apps, so it confuses me that you could not deploy a console app.
@@IAmTimCorey My first try was a console app too. I could install it, however it failed to execute all the time. Then I made little useless WPF App wich works, but I can't uninstall it
oh my god it freaking worked its on my desktop i cant believe it ur a god
I’m not finding any follow up videos where you go more in depth, such as using a URL for the update location. Did you ever make any update videos?
-Thanks.
Not yet. It is on the list but I've got a ton of videos that I need to get to.
I tried using URL from IIS Server and failed with 404 error but works perfectly if i try local path. Please if u have any video on URL kindly notify me. Thanks
Great video, you already have the most complex one, where can you download and install it?
The source code is linked in the description.
I don't agree with what you said about at the beginning.
Squirrel installer is harder to manage in larger enterprise environment.
Also remember that the most common best practice for those environments is to disable automatic updates.
Still, great tutorial : )
Harder than ClickOnce? Hmmm, that hasn't been my experience (in large enterprise environments).
Master Teacher.......
Thank you!
Thanks for super clear video, in my case it failed and I cannot get the Squirrel -releasify step to work I get many ‘System.Exception: Failed to modify resources’ errors. I think I will go back and see if I can get the ClickOnce to work.
I would check the folder permissions and change to a local folder temporarily to test to see if that fixes the issue. It might be a pathing issue or a permissions issue.
For application upgrade... How we can handle if SQLite schema change?
Thanks in Advance :)
Thanks, I added it to my suggested topics list.
I know this video is a year old, but I do want to point out, it appears you are using the file version to display and not the assembly version. I know you change both whenever you build, but yeah.
Yep.
Hey, the video was really helpful. I'd like to make it even better by automating the tasks you mentioned. I looked for the follow-up video but couldn't find it. Are there any updates on this?
No, I didn’t create a video on automating this process.
Great content... I love it. However, I realized that when you make the update, the data of the prior version in the application is lost with the new update.
How can one fix this??
Yep, the idea here would be the database is a temp storage that is ok to overwrite. If you don't want to do this, you would need to either not deploy the database with the updates or you would need to have some type of programmatic check on if the database should be upgraded/migrated.
For example me I don't overwrite the database, if I made some changes in the database (new columns, tables, triggers ...) I write a script in the first form to check if this db have those tables or columns, here's an example of me checking if a table exists;
string sqlTable1 = "IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_NAME='table1') "
+ " CREATE TABLE table1( "
+ " rowid int IDENTITY(1, 1) NOT NULL, "
+ " datec datetime2(0) DEFAULT GETDATE(), "
+ " dateo datetime2 NULL, "
+ " ref nvarchar(255) NULL, "
+ " CONSTRAINT PK_llx_saisie_caisse_rowid PRIMARY KEY(rowid) "
+ " )";
SqlCommand cmdTable1 = new SqlCommand(sqlTable1 , cnx);
cmdTable1.ExecuteNonQuery();
and you just got data loss.. "Jane Smith" is missing after the silent update. So better don't ship the database with the executable and instead let it be created if nessecary.
Btw how can you implement a db update script with squirrel?
Yeah, I forgot to mention that. The bundling should not have included the database or the database should have been set not to overwrite. I'll add update scripts as a suggestion for the next squirrel video.
Sir can you please make a video on best way to give trials of actual software , Serial keys or date based verification can be bypassed anything that can work more better ?
I'll add it to the suggestion list.
Hi @IAmTimCorey! Can it work in network mode, server - client ? Any unpleasant experiences with this? Great stuff, Thank you!
Sure, it works just fine on a network. You might need to use an internal "web address" for the updates, but that's no big deal.
I read through the comments to this video but didn't see an answer to my question so I will ask it... How do you go about deploying updates without overwriting the SQLite database? In the video example, you added a person (leaving 2 people in the database), deployed the update, then ran the program again reverting back to a single person in the list. Obviously, we want the users to not have to start over from scratch when deploying an update such as adding the version number to the title. Thanks!
Good question and it is something I wish I had remembered to cover in the video. I'll be covering it in another video. You have to make some tweaks to the installer.
Thanks, Tim! Great videos!
Too bad Squirrel.Windows is deprecated and no longer maintained. Anyone know of a good alternative?
It isn’t deprecated. It was for about a week but others took over the project. They are still looking for help but they are moving forward.
Nice video easy to understand, Can we update the database file especially if it's a SQLServer database, and also what if we use the application as a network version where we have the database stored on the server, or is that to much to ask for from this free tool.
That is a lot but I'll see what I can put together for a demo for the more advanced version of this video.
It works just fine, thanks for the best tutorial... How can I update the program without altering the config file?
You mean keep the same version but have newer code? That isn't something you should do. If you make code changes, you should change the version and make a new deployment. Even for a bug fix.
@@IAmTimCorey By config file I meant the Properties.Settings which my program uses to save and load data, but after every update it resets everything. I just want to exclude saved data from updating.
Just wondering how this is better than ClickOnce. I was able to get ClickOnce deployment with self-updating from intranet site working perfectly. The only downsides with ClickOnce are inability to create Test vs Prod versions of the same application and when an update is forced via the minimum required version, it cannot be easily reverted (without publishing another new version and incrementing the minimum required version again). What was it about ClickOnce that made you go down this path?
There are a couple things, including the fact that ClickOnce seems to be touchy. Rollback is easy, no UAC is nice, background updates, easy package creation and hosting, and a lot more. The bottom line is it felt simpler with more power vs. ClickOnce. That isn't a knock on ClickOnce though. If you find it works for you, I don't see any reason to switch.
Great video, as always... You have used SQLite DB for database storage which makes it easy to update the database structure... Is there a way to update the sql server database for any changes that have been made in the SQL Database Project.... e.g. If I have added a new table and some stored procedures to the SQL Project, is there a way to check whether the database structure has been changed and make the necessary changes to the deployed database...
You would have to do it manually for SQLite. For SQL Server, if you use SSDT to build your database, you can have it deploy the changes as necessary.
It has been declared deprecated on their github page. Have you known about anyone taking over it? Or any other similar project? Thanks for the video!
That's a bummer! That was a great project. It will still continue to work with existing projects and should be fine for long-term use but I'll have to work on some alternate options.
@@IAmTimCorey I see that it was "un-deprecated" but is still looking for contributors.
Hello Tim,
A great tutorial as always,
Squirrel however doesn't support .Net Core as far as I know.. Is that true? and is there a work around or an alternative?
Squirrel doesn't really care about .NET types. It is a .NET Framework installer, meaning that is what powers it, but it can install pretty much anything. You can install .NET Core projects or even Java projects with Squirrel.
If only that person other day new who Tim Corey was he wouldnt question your programming skills nice tutorial needing this myself for a dekstop app that goes out to 8 clients how does one use this for updates as well is their a way to tell it not to overwrite the users app.config
The easiest thing to do is store the changeable settings in something other than app.config. I believe by default it overwrites the app.config each time but I'm not certain. The other option would be to do some scripting to handle avoiding the overwrite.
Great video!!! just what i needed... now how do i host my updates on github?
GitHub isn't really a file hosting location. You might be able to make it work but that isn't what it is designed to do. You really want a web host for that.
Hi Tim, this is a great video. It answer all my question about creating installer and version updated. I have one problem here. I simply put my application setting into files. And this squirrel update process will created new version folder, which make me lost my setting files in old version folder. Do you have any idea to solve my problem?
I have in mind to put my setting file in different directory, but i don't know where to put it.
thanks for sharing
You would probably need to write some code to move your files into a different location and then only create them if they don't exist. As for where, that would be up to you.
it seems, that for an automatic update, you must not change the second number in the version number.
For example changing 1.1.1 to 1.1.2 works fine, but 1.1.1 to 1.2.0 does not.
I did not encounter that error when updating. Can you reproduce it in a clean project?
Hi Tim, Great video! Do you have any recommendations for a WPF project that calls on some separate python scripts, where the end user wouldn't have python installed already? Or any recommended videos?
Well you could use pyinstaller to convert the scripts into exe files, and call on those
Thanks Tim, this very
helpful. My questions are: what about prerequisites? I mean most apps have reports like crystal report or sql server express..etc. and also i usually write a code to execute the script.sql of the database on installation by
reading it from a copy i add to the project files. and adding license to the app and certificate and manifest?. are these issues available on squirrel? thanks again and
great job :)
Mostly not. Squirrel tries to tackle the 80% scenarios. If you have client-side configuration changes you need to make, you probably need a different installation solution (or you need to execute a script after the installation). Typically, you don't need to write to a database or run custom scripts after an installation. That doesn't mean you don't, it just means that scenario is in the 20% that Squirrel didn't attempt to address. That is where a more full-featured installation will be needed.
How to avoid SQLite-db being replaced during update of app? when I deploy a new version, the db-file are replaced with an empty db.
Don't deploy it as part of the package. Download it independently and update it manually.
that works well :) but i hope if there's way to change the installation from applocaldata location
still searching for it
That really is outside the purpose of Squirrel. Its goals are to be fast, silent, and not pop up a UAC dialog on installation. Trying to specify a different location for installation could cause the UAC dialog or it could not exist or you would have to prompt the user. All of these options violate the goals of Squirrel. If you really need a different location, Squirrel isn't the right installation package for you. Here is a bit more on that subject: github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows/pull/1067
mr tim did u uploaded video for update from webserver as u said in this video ( 12:00 ) ?