There's a version of Sparkle for Windows. I have no idea why apps don't adopt it.

I am constantly amazed and frustrated at how many apps I use on Windows have the following update process:

1. Pops up an alert telling me an update is available

2. I click a link in the alert opening my browser, taking me to a webpage full of links for different OSes and different architectures, which I have to search through to find Windows Intel x64

3. Wait to download the new version and then open it up

4. Spend 30 seconds clicking through a Windows Installer

Absolutely bonkers, especially considering some of these apps seem to release on an agile biweekly schedule. I usually procrastinate downloading updates because it's such a pain in the ass -- and that's not what you want your users to be doing.

Well, someone made something inspired by Sparkle for Windows, https://winsparkle.org

On Windows, chances are that once you have a working installer you will be so deeply stockholmed that the idea that updates might go any other way than through a future incarnation of that installer is completely alien to you.

That being said, I think the way sparkle (and winsparkle, see sibling) present themselves looks delightfully NSIS (the good parts)

MSIX + scheduled task is the way

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/non-store-dev...

Or just publish to MS Store and/or winget.

I sometimes see Squirrel[^1] used in Windows apps. Looks like it's used by Electron[^2], so maybe that's why.

[1]: https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows/tree/develop/do...

[2]: https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/main/docs/api/auto...

Along with some of the other comments, there is NetSparkle for C#-based apps that is cross platform: https://github.com/NetSparkleUpdater/NetSparkle (disclaimer: I am the primary maintainer of this repository).