Forcing ClickOnce application update on Windows Startup? - c#

I have a ClickOnce application that should automatically check for updates before the application starts. If I start the application manually this also works perfectly.
However I have also added a registry entry to start the application at windows startup and in this case the check for an update is not performed and the application starts just as if there would be no update - I guess because by the time the application starts the connection to the network drive on which the ClickOnce application installation is published is not yet established.
As a workaround I tried to manually force the application in my code by calling this after my MainWindow is already loaded:
private void checkforupdate()
{
try
{
ApplicationDeployment ad = ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment;
if (ad.CheckForUpdate())
{
MessageBox.Show("Update available!");
ad.Update();
}
}
catch { }
}
However for some reason this code still only triggers an update when I start the application manually, when it's started automatically on Windows start nothing happens.
The part of my code where I call checkforupdate is after there was already a few things loaded from the very same drive where the ClickOnce installation files are published so the connection must be established by then.
Does anyone know what to do?

Ok, I found out that I was having a severe misunderstanding of how the update of a ClickOnce application works: In the registry entry which starts the program at Windows start-up I referred to the .exe file in the mysterious Users\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0.... folders - while this does work of course for starting the application itself it does not have anything to do with the update functionality itself.
The update only happens when referring to ClickOnce Application reference (.appref-ms) Shortcut on the Desktop.

Related

How to spawn a process that DOES NOT request admin rights on the machine in c#

I seem to be asking the opposite of everyone else. I want to spawn a process and NOT have it request admin rights on the machine.
I have 2 executables:
1) Application
2) Updater
The application periodically checks a web service to see if there are any software updates. If there are, it will spawn the updater .exe and close the current application.
The updater then downloads the files, unpacks and spawns the original process.
Nothing here seems to need admin rights, and yet UAC keeps getting involved.
This is an application that runs on a machine with no keyboard or mouse and I want the update process to run with no user interaction.
Do I have to turn off UAC in order to get this to work, or have I got something enabled that I need to disable?
I think the only other piece to add here is that I'm using ClickOnce to deploy a minimal app initially that will always run the updater and download the latest copy of the program.
I'm using the following lines to spawn the updater or the calling app:
if (System.IO.File.Exists("AppUpdater.exe"))
{
Process.Start(fileName: "AppUpdater.exe", arguments: appId + " " + versionNo + " " + callingApp);
}
if (File.Exists(CallingApp))
{
Process.Start(CallingApp);
}
Thanks
Turns out it was my executable for the updater application that was causing the issue. I had to change some settings in the project properties.
I'm not sure exactly which one was causing the issue because I changed a number of settings to match another application that didn't cause the UAC message to be displayed.
I suspect the main one was the "Icon and Manifest" setting; I changed this to "Embed manifest with default settings".

Run C# app on Startup?

I have created a simple weather application and I added the code below to let the user let it run on Startup:
RegistryKey rk = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Run", true);
if (startupCheck.Checked) {
rk.SetValue("WeTile", "\"" + Application.ExecutablePath.ToString() + "\"");
} else {
rk.DeleteValue("WeTile", false);
}
Now this runs fine on both my computers. But when I gave the app to my girlfriend. She said the app does not run on windows start up. I read it online that it could be because of the user permission or the location so I told her to move the app to c:/ and try checking the box again and then restarting. Now it works but on every startup she has the default windows message saying you want to run this app?
How do I get rid of this? What is the best way to add to windows startup that works with both windows 32/64 bit without any user permission disruptions?
It sounds like you may have run afoul of Windows' file blocking security function. Applications created on another computer are automatically blocked from executing unless the user specifically "unblocks" the file. Have your girlfriend right-click on the executable, select "Properties" and see if there is a button at the bottom of the dialog to unblock the file.
Once unblocked, you should no longer see the confirmation prompt at startup.
You could add it to the Windows startup folder, check if it's not there already and if not, add it (assuming this is what the user wants).
See How do I set a program to launch at startup

Process.Start won't work

I am trying to launch a process from a web page's back-end code/app pool. This process will launch an App that i built myself.
For some reason, the process only works / runs when i start it from VS2013... it never works when i launch it from IIS(7.5) itself.
I am on a Windows 7 machine (both IIS host, and App location), and I've setup my web site to only be accessible via internal network.
Here's the code, followed by the config / attempts to fix the issue:
protected void btn_DoIt_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string file_text = this.txt_Urls.Text;
if (!String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(file_text))
File.WriteAllText(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["filePath"], file_text);
ProcessStartInfo inf = new ProcessStartInfo();
SecureString ss = GetSecureString("SomePassword");
inf.FileName = #"........\bin\Release\SomeExecutable.exe";
inf.Arguments = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["filePath"];
inf.UserName = "SomeUserName";
inf.Password = ss;
inf.UseShellExecute = false;
//launch desktop app, but don't close it in case we want to see the results!
try
{
Process.Start(inf);
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
this.txt_Urls.Text = ex.Message;
}
this.txt_Urls.Enabled = false;
this.btn_DoIt.Enabled = false;
this.txt_Urls.Text = "Entries received and process started. Check local machine for status update, or use refresh below.";
}
Here are the things I've tried to resolve the issue:
Made sure the executing assembly was built with AnyCPU instead of
x86
Ensured that the AppPool that runs the app, also runs under the same account (SomeUsername) as the ProcessStartInfo specified.
Ensured that the specific user account has full access to the executable's folder.
Ensured that IIS_USR has full access to the executable's folder.
Restarted both the app pool and IIS itself many times over implementing these fixes
I am now at a loss as to why this simply will not launch the app... when i first looked into the event log, i saw that the app would die immediately with code 1000:KERNELBASE.dll, which got me on the AnyCPU config instead of X86 fix... that fixed the event log entries but the app still doesn't start (nothing comes up in task manager), and i get no errors in the event log...
if someone could help me fix this problem i would really appreciate it. This would allow me to perform specific tasks on my main computer from any device on my network (phone, tablet, laptop, etc etc) without having to be in front of my main PC...
UPDATE
The comment to my OP, and ultimate answer from #Bradley Uffner actually nailed the problem on the head: My "app" is actually a desktop application with a UI, and in order to run that application, IIS would need to be able to get access to the desktop and the UI, just like if it were a person sitting down in front of the PC. This of course is not the case since IIS is running only as a service account and it makes sense that it shouldn't be launching UI programs in the background. Also see his answer for one way of getting around this.
Your best bet might be to try writing this as 2 parts. A web site that posts commands to a text file (or database, or some other persistent storage), and a desktop application that periodically polls that file (database, etc) for changes and executes those commands. You could write out the entire command line, including exe path command arguments, and switches.
This is the only way I can really think of to allow a service application like IIS to execute applications that require a desktop context with a logged in user.
You should assign a technical user with enough high priviliges to the running application pool. By default the application pool is running with ApplicationPoolIdentity identy which has a very low priviliges.

My C# application is returning 0xE0434352 to Windows Task Scheduler but it is not crashing

I have written a few C# apps that I have running via windows task scheduler. They are running successfully (as I can see from the log files that they are writing ) but windows task scheduler shows them returning a last run result of 0xE0434352. Is there something I need to do in my C# application so that it returns a success code to the windows task scheduler?
Another option is to simply use the Application log accessible via the Windows Event Viewer. The .Net error will be recorded to the Application log.
You can see these events here:
Event Viewer (Local) > Windows Logs > Application
When setup a job in new windows you have two fields "program/script" and "Start in(Optional)". Put program name in first and program location in second.
If you will not do that and your program start not in directory with exe, it will not find files that are located in it.
Hans Passant was correct, I added a handler for AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException as described here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.appdomain.unhandledexception(v=vs.71).aspx I was able to find the exception that was occurring and corrected it.
I was referencing a mapped drive and I found that the mapped drives are not always available to the user account that is running the scheduled task so I used \\IPADDRESS instead of MAPDRIVELETTER: and I am up and running.
In case it helps others, I got this error when the service the task was running at didn't have write permission to the executable location. It was attempting to write a log file there.
I had this issue and it was due to the .Net framework version. I had upgraded the build to framework 4.0 but this seemed to affect some comms dlls the application was using. I rolled back to framework 3.5 and it worked fine.
I got the same error but I have fixed it by changing the file reading path from "ConfigFile.xml" to AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory.ToString() + "ConfigFile.xml"
In my case, this error due to file path error because task manager starts program from "System32" as initial path but the folder we thought.
I was getting the same message message within dotNet Core 2.2 using MVC 5, however nothing was being logged to the Windows Event Viewer.
I found that I had changed the Project sdk from Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web to Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Razor (seen within the projects.csproj file). I changed this back and it worked fine :)
In my case it was because I had message boxes. Once I commented that code out, it started working. I remembered that could be a problem when I looked at the event log as suggested in this thread. Thank you everyone!
I encountered this problem when working with COM objects. Under certain circumstances (my fault), I destroyed an external .EXE process, in a parallel thread, a variable tried to access the com interface app.method and a COM-level crash occurred. Task Scheduler noticed this and shut down the app. But if you run the app in the console and don't handle the exception, the app will continue to work ...
Please note that if you use unmanaged code or external objects (AD, Socket, COM ...), you need to monitor them!
Also message box in PowerShell. I converted PowerShell script to exe. When running as admin it's worked but in task schedule I received this error also.
There was an line in PowerShell script with write-output. After commented this line and compile new exe Task Schedule was completed successfully.
It is permission issue in my case the task scheduler has a user which doesn't have permission on the server in which the database is present.

Cannot start service

I have 2 other services running on a server and they start and stop without a problem, however one of them will not start. I can't see any difference in their implementation or config files. I'm receiving the following messages when attempting to start the service after installing it with InstallUtil:
The service is not responding to the control function
more help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 2186
NET HELPMSG 2186:
Explanation: The service cannot run your command at this time
Thanks very much in advance!
This is most likely due to service installed, then uninstalled and now you are trying to install again. Reboot the machine and try again.
UPDATE
According to the event log error, you are trying to run the service as the current logged in user (I guess you are connected using remote desktop). This is not the correct approach, you need to run the service as the LocalSystem. In the project properties window, change the identity of the service.
UPDATE 2
In the design view of the service/component class, click on serviceProcessInstaller1 (or similar) and then in tmhe properties you see a drop down: Account with 4 entries: User/LocalNetwork/LocalService/LocalSystem. Make it LocalSystem
On Start event can you put
try
{
//...
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
EventLog.WriteEntry(ex.Message + ex.StackTrace);
}
and watch whats happening?
or
attach (Tools > Attach To Process) your process to Visual Studio for DEBUG. You can see whats happening with debug, but EventLog works good aswell.

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