What is the best way to make program updates

[Nate Bross]

Okay, so as the title implies, I have a program that has functionality that will be changing frequently.

 

What I'm wondering, is what you guys think the best way to do this is. I have a program calling a dll (both that I've written). The dll will change slightly from time to time. So what I want, is for the user to be able to copy/paste a dll into my program folder overwriting the existing one. and/or have an updater app that downloads the dll from a website and automatically overwrites the old dll.

 

Obviously I'll be using an interface which wont change, but the way the function(s) do their work will change.

 

What is the best way to have my program call this dll?

[PlausiblyDamp]

Have you looked at This Thread on developing a plugin based system?

 

The basic idea is an excellent way to implement your required functionality - the front end application will decide on the dll to load at runtime based on what it finds in the folder - as long as the interface is the same (as you said it is) then it won't care how that interface is implemented.

[mskeel]

For automatic updates I would check out the .Net Application Updater Component and the Sharp AutoUpdater. I've used the Sharp AutoUpdater in a production environment and it works pretty well. With the Sharp AutoUpdater, you don't need to worry about plug-ins or anything but you do need to be careful to update everything. It's a pretty simple component, but it gets the job done.