What are .NET core desktop app publishing options?

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I am coming from .NET Framework where I used ClickOnce to publish updates to my software for computers on our private network. I'm trying to transition to .NET Core moving forward but ClickOnce is not available for .NET Core apps.

I tried MSIX and Squirrel to publish and although they did publish fine, when the installed instance was updated, it overrode the Settings.Settings file which I use to lots of customization properties that the user can change. ClickOnce worked great in that on initial install all the properties in the Settings.Settings file would be the default values, and then when updating it would leave those intact and if simply add any new properties that were added in the update that didn't exist in the initial install.

Is there any publishing alternatives that are more similar to ClickOnce? And/Or have the same settings migration behavior when updating?

What I have tried:

I've tried MSIX installer and Squirrel.

Posted 24-Aug-20 10:17am

MrGlass3

Updated 24-Aug-20 20:46pm

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Garth J Lancaster · Answer 1 · 2020-08-24T20:46:00

Have you thought of using the Wix Installer Tool-Set to build an MSI - which can have custom screens, options ? .. I haven't tried this one myself (ie Wix on a Dotnet Core project) - there's an article here that demos using it for WinForms, I'm sure a search for Wix Installer Dotnet core will turn up something useful... ASP.NET - Create MSI or setup.exe installer for .NET Projects with WiX[^]