Windows Auto-Updater

Update an application on a Windows machine

Description

Update your Windows applications. Will try to

1. Download the update from the specified URL on (re)configuration
2. Uninstall an existing installation of the same program
3. Install the update

This module tries to do everything silently, but there might be UAC prompts if the module is not run in administrator mode.

Attributes

The following attributes are available for this model:

Name	Type	Inclusion	Description
download_url	string	Required	URL of the update
download_destination	string	Optional	Alternate destination to store the download
installer_path	string	Optional	Path of the installer
install_args	[]string	Optional	Any args to pass
registry_lookup_key	string	Optional	Key for uninstaller
registry_lookup_value	string	Optional	Value for uninstaller
abort_on_uninstall_errors	bool	Optional	Should the update should fail if uninstallation encounters errors
force_install	bool	Optional	Install the update regardless of if the update has changed

Example Configuration

{
  "installer_path": "MyInstaller.exe",
  "install_args": [
    "/passive",
    "/norestart"
  ],
  "registry_lookup_key": "Publisher",
  "registry_lookup_value": "My Windows Publisher, Inc.",
  "download_url": "https://example.com/MyInstaller.zip",
  "abort_on_uninstall_errors": true,
  "force_install": false
}

download_url

REQUIRED The URL of the update

download_destination

OPTIONAL default: os.TempDir

An alternate download directory. The default location of the download is the operating system's temp directory

installer_path

OPTIONAL default: <empty string>

The path of the installer if the download URL points to a directory. This value should be relative to the root of the downloaded directory. If the downloaded update is a zip, the module will unzip first.

This is optional because the module will search for an installer (extensions .exe, .msi, or .bat) in the downloaded directory, but ONLY ONE LEVEL DEEP. So if the zip file stores the installer in a nested directory, you should add the installer_path attribute.

For example, if the downloaded update has a directory structure as follows:

downloaded_directory/
├─ README.md
├─ Release-Notes.txt
├─ setup.exe

The module will find the setup.exe installer and run it.

However, if the downloaded update has the directory structure

downloaded_directory/
├─ subdirectory/
│  ├─ README.md
│  ├─ Release-Notes.txt
│  ├─ setup.exe

the module will NOT find the setup.exe installer. In this case, you should specify the installer_path attribute as subdirectory\setup.exe.

install_args

OPTIONAL default: <empty array>

Array of arguments to pass to the installer. For example, ["/quiet", "/norestart"]. Note: not all installers support arguments.

registry_lookup_key

OPTIONAL default: <empty string>

Used in conjunction with registry_lookup_value in order to identify any existing installations in the registry to uninstall them. The module will uninstall all applications found that match these parameters. If not provided, the module will skip the uninstall step.

For example, you could provide the registry_lookup_key of "DisplayName", with the associated registry_lookup_value of "Some Example Program" in order to uninstall "Some Example Program". If multiple registry items have the same registry key/value, the module will attempt to uninstall all of them.

registry_lookup_value

OPTIONAL default: <empty string>

Used in conjunction with registry_lookup_key in order to identify any existing installations in the registry to uninstall them. The module will uninstall all applications found that match these parameters. If not provided, the module will skip the uninstall step.

For example, you could provide the registry_lookup_key of "DisplayName", with the associated registry_lookup_value of "Some Example Program" in order to uninstall "Some Example Program". If multiple registry items have the same registry key/value, the module will attempt to uninstall all of them.

abort_on_uninstall_errors

OPTIONAL default: false

The module will first try to uninstall any existing installation (see registry_lookup_key and registry_lookup_value). Should the module encounter any errors, this flag will determine if the install process will abort or continue.

force_install

OPTIONAL default: false

The module will not attempt to download or install the update if it detects that nothing has changed (criteria: same URL, same content size, same etag). Use this option to force the update to download and install, regardless the lack of changes.

Usage

The module will begin to download the update immediately upon (re)configuration. Send an empty doCommand to this component to start the remainder of the update process.