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Windows Overview

Applies to
Windows
MacOS
Linux

Windows specific notes about creating and using Velopack packages.

For Windows, Velopack creates and installs a folder structure which looks like the following:

%LocalAppData%
└── {packId}
    ├── current
    │   ├── YourFile.dll
    │   ├── sq.version
    │   └── YourApp.exe
    └── Update.exe

Packaging​

There are no special requirements to package a program for Windows, although you may wish to customise the installer using --packTitle, --splashImage, --icon etc. See the command line help for a complete list of options.

It's also very recommended (but not required) that you code sign before shipping to your users. If you do not do this, your app may be flagged as a virus.

Updating​

During updates, the entire current directory will be replaced, so if you need to store settings, logs, crash reports, and so on, please see Preserving Files.

On Windows, if any of the files inside current are in-use, the folder can not be moved/renamed/deleted, etc. There lots of things that could lock this folder. For example:

  • A process running inside current
  • A process running outside of current, which has opened a file inside current for reading.
  • Anti-virus / Windows Defender, etc
  • A process with it's CWD (current working dir) inside that folder (for example, a cmd.exe process).

If the folder can not be renamed during the update process, Velopack's updater will attempt to automatically kill any processes running inside current. If the folder is still locked and can not be renamed, the updater will search for other processes on the system which may be locking the folder - and if any are found, it will open a dialog to the user offering to kill them or abort the update. If the locking process could not be identified, (for example, if the locking process is running as Administrator) then an error message will be shown to the user, and the old version of the application will be launched.

info

Currently, neither the updater nor the installer support privileged directories such as C:\Program Files, but support for this is planned in the future.

Installing​

The setup produced by Velopack is a one-click installer, which will show the splash image of your choice (PNG, JPG, or animated GIF), or if you do not provide an image it will be a simple progress bar.

By default the installer will install to %LocalAppData%\{packId} but this can be overridden at runtime with the Setup.exe --installto {dir} argument.

Before starting installation, the installer will check that the App Runtime is compatible with the current operating system, and also check for any missing boostrapping dependencies.

Also, during installation the installer will run App Hooks, as well as launch the application for the first time once installation has completed. If you would like to prevent the application from being launched after install has completed, you can do this with the Setup.exe --silent argument.