Most of the time the deployment is more of a business decision and not only technological. Here are some deployment options you can choose based on the that:
- Windows Store
- It takes care of publishing and updates for you.
- limitations: Windows 8.x +, sandbox environment
- ClickOnce
- Microsoft’s solution to deploying your WPF app (but not UWP).
- takes care of packaging your App, Installing it and Updating it.
- Squirrel
- Another Installer and Update framework, like ClickOnce
- Chocolatey
- distribute your app and easily publish updates. It requires the user to install Chocolatey on his PC and then use the command line to install and update your app
- The custom solution:
- use an Installer and develop the update mechanism yourself. Its job is to package the application into an installation program.
- InstallShield – It’s very feature rich and always up to date with the latest technologies. It is very used with Windows applications. It can create MSI, EXE, and UWP app packages installers. It has its own scripting language to write custom jobs.
- Inno Setup is a popular free installer and works by by creating a text file (.iss) file which contains your installer’s settings and scripts. It has good documentation and a good-sized community. It produces only EXE files though, not MSI. On an update, InnoSetup will uninstall the previous version and install the new one.
- Wix is another popular free installer. It has a steeper learning curve than InstallShield and Inno Setup, but it can produce MSI files which can be a big advantage.
- publish your product version install files to a known network location, and the Desktop Application will endlessly query that location for new updates.
- use an Installer and develop the update mechanism yourself. Its job is to package the application into an installation program.