Modify WinNUT Update Routines (ClickOnce deployments)

[gbakeman]

The old MSI Installer/Setup system is not CI/CD friendly, so the need has arisen to find a new packaging and deployment system. Per #85, ClickOnce is a native msbuild packaging system that looks like a good solution. Prior to completing that, the WinNUT client needs to gracefully transition from the old system to the new one.

Strategies

Gradual procedure

Stage 1 - New Update Code

The first stage involves revamping the updater code in WinNUT. The current system relies on parsing HTTP queries sent directly to the GitHub web API, and presents a Form control prompting the user to update.

• Integrate GitHub library for updating #133

Changes

• Use a .Net Library to communicate with GitHub for update information
• Modular update installation system
  • MSI download & install
  • ClickOnce deployments

Todo

• Create new updater and verify changes in Debug building
• After full deployment, remove code for manually updating Settings Program settings not carrying over to new versions #135

Swift migration

An alternative to the gradual procedure, especially since we're already seeing issues with our current hybrid method of using Application Settings with the old MSI deployment scheme. The idea is to switch to a dual ClickOnce and MSI deployment system with the next pre-release, and maintain that through to the next full release. This will maintain a level of compatibility to catch users using the old update system that expects After that, we will switch to a true Semver versioning scheme (resetting the patch value to zero), and the MSI will no longer be built & deployed.

Dealing with old MSI installation

If we provide the ClickOnce installer to a user who is currently on the MSI installation, I don't think there's an automatic facility to remove the MSI installation and replace it with the ClickOnce installation.

References

• Release Building #81

• EV Certificate signing #84

• New Setup/Installer Build System #85

• System.Deployment.Application Namespace

• Upgrade an existing application to include ClickOnce