WebView2 ClickOnce Bootstrapper for Visual Studio and Azure Devops MSBuild

[carterlist]

Issue
Per WebView2 Deployment Sample Documentation,

If you plan to package either the Bootstrapper or the Standalone Installer, download the Bootstrapper or the Standalone Installer and place it under the WV2DeploymentVSInstallerSample folder.
Copy the entire WV2DeploymentVSInstallerSample folder, and paste it under either,

Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\ClickOnce Bootstrapper\Packages\, or
<VS Install Dir>\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\BootstrapperPackages\ (requires at least VS 2019 Update 7).

Details
I cannot run these manual steps on my Azure Devops build server. Consequently, the build of this sample and my application would fail once the build system cannot locate the ClickOnce Bootstrapper package.

Request
Can you add this automatically to the Visual Studio bootstrap packages folders?

AB#27656154

[champnic]

Thanks for the feedback @carterlist! We are currently investigating this and I'll let you know when we have an update here. Thanks!

[NikolaosWakem]

@champnic Has there been any update?

Still not in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\ClickOnce Bootstrapper\Packages with vs2019 and vs2022 installed

Is there a proper supported Click Once Bootstrap package for WebView2 anywhere for download other than WV2DeploymentVSInstallerSample.
Is there a proper Eula?
Is there a fix for "PublicKey for the WebView2 Runtime Bootstrapper may change"?

[champnic]

We have the bootstrapper package and are working with licensing to make sure we're covered when it's checked in to Visual Studio. Currently the sample is still the best place to find how to do it yourself.

The publickey shouldn't be an issue if you are using ClickOnce/VS Installer - they've put in a fix that will check the root key in addition to the leaf key, which shouldn't change over time.

[NikolaosWakem]

Are you able to put what you currently have somewhere where I can download it?

[DavidShoe]

Good day @NikolaosWakem, I have created a prototype of what we think the click once prerequisite will look like once we get it into the visual studio suite. You can find it at:
https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Samples/tree/user/DaShoe/boostrapperprerequisiteprototype
If you clone that repo there is a WebViewRuntimePrototype directory which has the prereq components.
Please note: this is NOT a production release but should let you install it and see how it will work for your development process.
Instructions for setup are in the readme.md file.

[NikolaosWakem]

Arguments=" /silent /installelevated /install" didn't seem to work
neither did
Arguments=" /silent /install"
only
Arguments=" /install" worked for me.

on clean install of Windows 10 20H2

So will use that and in the meantime keep and eye out for an official package.

Thanks!

[DavidShoe]

Your finding is consistent with what we are seeing, this is part of the work we are trying to streamline. The /silent /install would have worked if you had run as admin. It fails because it can't pop the required UAC dialog with the /silent flag.

[NikolaosWakem]

Exactly.. non silent and automatically asking for UAC is fine for the release I've just put out :-D

Is WebView2 ever going to make it into Windows updates?

[carterlist]

@NikolaosWakem It appears WebView2 is already being auto-installed on Windows machines.
See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/webview2-install

"WebView2 Runtime installations began in April 2021. Only devices that are running Windows and that have Version 2101 or later of Microsoft 365 Apps installed are affected."