Resquirrelly

A Squirrel sample app for app updates and restarts

This sample app uses Squirrel.Windows for its installation and automatic updates. The app will run for the first time immediately after installation (like most Squirrel installed apps) and wait for an update. Once it detects an update (using a 20 second polling interval), it will show a Restart button, which will restart the app when selected. The rest of this document will walk you through how to set up this sample and run it. Although, keep reading before cloning this repo.

I built this sample because I was struggling to get Squirrel to restart the app after it detected and downloaded an update. Part of the solution was to comment out a line of Squirrel code. That's why Squirrel project is linked as a submodule. I hope to change this after I get more guidance from the community. More info below.

Prerequisites

• Hosting. You will need a place to host the deployment updates with a public URL that Resquirrelly can poll. Azure Blob storage was used in putting this together, but most types of HTTP hosting (Amazon S3, GitHub Pages, etc.) should work fine.

• NuGet. You'll need to have the NuGet Command Line Utility installed and in your %PATH%. This is used by a script thats been included to make doing the deployments faster/easier. You'll also need NuGet installed with VS [2013].

Setup

• Clone this repository with git clone --recursive https://github.com/locksmithdon/Resquirrelly.git This will also clone the Squirrel.Windows submodule. If you cloned before reading this, run git submodule init and then git submodule update to bring in Squirrel.Windows.
• Restore Squirrel's NuGet packages by running nuget restore Squirrel.Windows/Squirrel.sln from Resquirrelly directory.
• Open Resquirrelly.sln in VS and open UpdateHelper.cs.
• Edit line 6 to be the address where Resquirrelly can find the deployments you're going to upload.
• Open Squirrel/UpdateManager.cs and comment out the last line in RestartApp() (Environment.Exit(0);) at around line 184.
• Build the solution. NuGet Package Restore is enabled so the packages should be downloaded and installed when you build. Be sure they do.

The first build

• Back in your command line tool (in the Resquirrelly folder), enter the following command: release 1.0 and let it finish.
• From the Releases folder, upload RELEASES and Resquirrelly-1.0-full.nupkg to the HTTP location you're hosting your deployment packages. In a real world scenario, you would probably upload ResquirrellyInstaller.exe also.
• After the upload finishes, run ResquirrellyInstaller.exe to install and run Resquirrelly.
• Leave it running.

Deployments

• Using VS, open MainWindow.xaml and change line 16 to "Version 1.1" so it will be obvious that the update has been applied.
• Build the solution.
• Back on the command line, enter: release 1.1
• From the Releases folder, upload Resquirrelly-1.1-delta.nupkg, Resquirrelly-1.1-full.nupkg to your HTTP deployment location (hold off on uploading RELEASES for the moment). In a real world scenario, you would probably upload an update of the installer also.
• Only after the other files have finished uploading, upload RELEASES. This is the file Squirrel is polling for, so you want the other files in place first.
• In less than 20 seconds, Resquirrelly will detect the update, download it, and display the Restart button.

• Select the button to restart and launch Resquirrelly 1.1.

• Deploying new versions is just a matter of repeating the steps in this section.

More info

• We commented out the line in Squirrel's UpdateManager that closes the app because I think this line may be called too soon, which might not be giving the previous call to Update.exe enough time to grab the PID/filename of the app before shutting it down. In Resquirrelly, before it closes itself, the button handler waits one second (await Task.Delay(1000)) to give Update.exe more time. Not at all elegant, but hopefully it's only temporary until I get better guidance from the community.

• The script that does the builds (release.bat) is currently using a debug build. If you need to use a release build for whatever reason, be sure to change the script to use Resquirrelly.Release.nuspec. It doesn't include the symbols.

Let me know if you have any questions.