Self deletable application in C# in one executable

Question

Is it possible to make an application in C# that will be able to delete itself in some condition.

I need to write an updater for my application but I don\'t want the

Answer 1

It's tricky without introducing yet another process (that you'd then want to delete as well, no doubt). In your case, you already have 2 processes - updater.exe and application.exe. I'd probably just have the Application delete updater.exe when it's spawned from there - you could use a simple command line arg, or an IPC call from updater.exe to application.exe to trigger it. That's not exactly a self deleting EXE, but fulfills the requirements I think.

For the full treatment, and other options you should read the definitive treatment of self deleting EXEs. Code samples are in C (or ASM), but should be p/invokable.

I'd probably try CreateFile with FILE_FLAG_DELETE_ON_CLOSE for updater.exe with something like (psuedo code):

 var h = CreateFile(
            "updater.exe", 
            GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE, 
            FILE_SHARE_DELETE, 
            NULL, 
            CREATE_NEW, 
            FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL | FILE_FLAG_DELETE_ON_CLOSE
         );

 byte[] updaterBytes = GetUpdaterBytesFromWeb();
 File.WriteAllBytes("updater.exe", updaterBytes);

 Process.Start("updater.exe");

Once application.exe exits, updater.exe has a file handle of 1. When updater.exe exits, it drops to 0 and should be deleted.