Windows application update from a shared drive - Visual Studio Publish

Question

I would like my application to look for update from a shared drive. So if a new version is published to a shared drive, all users get an update message when they start the application.

I am using visual studio publish feature. It ask for Installation Folder URL. When I choose a folder, it gives error "The string must be a fully qualified URL or UNC path".

What will be the UNC path for following folder?

D:\InstallationFolder\

I tried \\\D\InstallationFolder\,` and it gives me warning "Warning: Unable to view published application at \\D\InstallationFolder."

Help

Answer 1

First：See Publishing ClickOnce Applications on MSDN.

In the How will users install the application? page, select the location where users will go to install the application:

If users will install the application directly from the file share, click From a UNC path or file share, and then click Next. (This is for publishing locations of the form c:\deploy\myapp or \server\myapp.)

UNC path

UNC stands for universal (or consistent, uniform) naming convention, and is a syntax used to access folders and files on a computer network. The syntax is as follows:

\\<computer name>\<shared directory>\

Followed by any number of directories, and end with a directory or file name.

Last:

Find UNC path of a network drive

Refer to dlauzon's answer:

Or use net use:

Refer to Lachlan Dowding's answer here:

In Windows, if you have mapped network drives and you don't know the UNC path for them, you can start a command prompt (Start → Run → cmd.exe) and use the net use command to list your mapped drives and their UNC paths:

C:\>net use
New connections will be remembered.

Status       Local     Remote  HTTPS             Network

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK           Q:        \\server1\foo             Microsoft Windows Network
OK           X:        \\server2\bar             Microsoft Windows Network
The command completed successfully.

Note that this shows the list of mapped and connected network file shares for the user context the command is run under. If you run cmd.exe under your own user account, the results shown are the network file shares for yourself. If you run cmd.exe under another user account, such as the local Administrator, you will instead see the network file shares for that user.