QUESTION: Auto-updating Winform app (on website)

[VB Programmer]

I have a winform app that I want to auto-update whenever there is a new
version on the web server.

I realize that I can have a shortcut pointing to, for example,
http://locahost/myweb/MyApp.exe. But, I always get the "Open" or "Save as"
dialog when I run this. I can't seem to get around this.

I then tried to make a "bootstrap" app that would reside locally, on the
clients machine, that would launch the app. This doesn't work. Any ideas
what I'm doing wrong? Here's the code:

Private Sub frmMain_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As
System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
Dim asmMyAssembly As [Assembly] =
[Assembly].LoadFrom("http://localhost/powerweb/powerconsole.exe")
Close()
End Sub

 

[William F. Robertson, Jr.]

I thought this behavior was by design.

I wouldn't want a link to install something on my machine automatically.
Imagine if you went to a page, and they have a window.location =
http://microsoft.com/virus.exe in the load event.

You wouldn't want it to automatically install.

Or so I would think.

bill