Start update-process by clicking on application taskbar button or desktop shortcut

jvintzel  Hi, any news on this? Latest status "working on it" is 8 months old. As has been stated by many - this is quite critical feature. We wish to migrate to MSIX, but we need to ensure applications will auto update regardless of which shortcut does user use. Thanks in advance.

Not to ruin the mood here, but I just want to point out that this is also an issue with ClickOnce for .NET Core 3.1 and above, so any hope of migrating back to ClickOnce doesn't save you either.

See the official response from Microsoft here:

https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/clickonce-application-not-updating-if-run-from-pin/1330922

Spoiler alert, they say they're not fixing it for ClickOnce...

I too would like to say how important it is in an enterprise environment to have the app check for updates no matter how the app is launched.  The MSIX should be able to create shortcuts in all of Windows's special folders (Taskbar, StartMenu, Desktop, Startup, SendTo,...).  Special attention to the SendTo folder is required in order to pass the selected file's path from File Explorer to the app's StartupEventArgs for processing.

Creation of these shortcuts should be declarative in the MSIX so that they all can be removed on uninstall.

Is there an estimated timeline (worst case)?

I'm using MSIX to update a .NET Core WPF application. In that context, this behaviour is very strange and took a long while to try to figure out what's going wrong. Launching the app from a shortcut or from the Start Menu should all result in the exact same update behaviour. 

Especially when adding the following line to the .appinstaller file:

<OnLaunch HoursBetweenUpdateChecks="0" ShowPrompt="true" UpdateBlocksActivation="true"/>

Does anyone have a decent workaround? Manually checking versions and triggering update processes kind of defeats the purpose of the whole mechanism, I would think.

I wish I read this a week ago before I started working on the change over from ClickOnce to AppX/Msix.  This is a complete show stopper for us.  We need the app to check every time it is launched if an update is available.  If there is, IT SHOULD UPDATE BEFORE even launching the app, not after.  I am floored that cannot be done. 

I see options 

UpdateBlocksActivation

to force but that seems to only work on the latest Win10 builds.  Why on earth didnt MS update ClickOnce to support .net core so we can keep the same UX.

Might have to see if Squirrel.Windows is still a viable option 😕

thibaudcomtemy application is WPF compiled under .Net Core and automatic update procedure is not started when app is launched by clicking on app desktop icon or task bar button.

MarosK,

The documentation reads : 

Setting the ShowPrompt="true" attribute currently shows a prompt for UWP applications but not for desktop applications that have been packaged in a Windows app package (that is, desktop applications that use the Desktop Bridge). For desktop applications, this functionality provides a silent update; the same default functionality provided by the OnLaunch element.

We don't have this attribute in our package file, but the app is still updated (the new app features are available when the app is launched and an update available). As made clear by the documentation, the update is silent for Desktop Bridge apps. But the update works 🙂

thibaudcomteI have HoursBetweenUpdateChecks="0" in my Package.appinstaller project file and it do not start update process if app is launched from desktop shortcut or taskbar button.

<UpdateSettings>
     <OnLaunch HoursBetweenUpdateChecks="0" ShowPrompt="true" UpdateBlocksActivation="true"/>
     <ForceUpdateFromAnyVersion>true</ForceUpdateFromAnyVersion>
/UpdateSettings>