The Application Launcher

The application launcher developed in this chapter allows an application to update itself with automatic file downloads. This model is used, in a slightly different fashion, in the popular .NET Terrarium learning game developed by Microsoft architects to demonstrate .NET. (You can download the Terrarium application, but not the source code, from http://www.gotdotnet.com/terrarium.)

The key principle in this model is that the user never loads the application directly. Instead, the user launches a stub program called the application launcher. This program queries an XML Web service to determine whether a new version of the target program is available. If it is, the launcher notifies the user or installs it automatically. ...

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