How do I get the current published version in a .NET application?

Question

I want to be able to display the current version of a .NET application that I have deployed using the publish wizard. There is a nice option to automatically update the version number every time I publish my application.

I found another question (Automatically update version number) that had this to get the current version:

Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version

This gets you the version you set in the project properties, but not the version that is automatically incremented each time you publish.

Partlow

Can you qualify that assertion somehow? GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version works just fine on release assemblies – Shackelford

Maybe I meant publish and not deploy. I can go change that in the question. When I run through the publish wizard it automatically updates a publish version. In code it is referred to as the Deployed version. – Partlow

Answer 1

I ended up using this little bit of code to get the current deployed version or if it isn't deployed the current assembly version.

private Version GetRunningVersion()
{
  try
  {
    return Application.ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.CurrentVersion;
  }
  catch
  {
    return Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version;
  }
}

I had to add references to System.Deployment and System.Reflection.

Partlow

You don't have to use that hackish try/catch block. You can check to see if your app is deployed ApplicationDeployment.IsNetworkDeployed – Johnnyjumpup

ApplicationDeployment.IsNetworkDeployed throws an exception if it is not running as a ClickOnce application and the result may be closing the entire application. You do want the try-catch - otherwise you are doing a disservice to current and/or future users. – Metabolize

After adding ApplicationDeployment.IsNetworkDeployed, I never saw an exception again. It was only when accessing the CurrentDeployment class. – Hine

Answer 2

You can use the following test

if (System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationDeployment.IsNetworkDeployed) {
    return System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.CurrentVersion;
}

to avoid the exception (as detailed in this post).

Also, I don't think you can get the current publish version via Visual Studio debugging because accessing CurrentDeployment will throw an InvalidDeploymentException.

Continuance

I prefer this method over the accepted answer. The accepted answer makes no distinction about which exception it's handling. It's generally bad practice to make sweeping exception handlers. – Shaner

Likewise. It also doesn't revert arbitrarily to the assembly version; it's not comparable to the deployment version, so it shouldn't be used as a fallback. – Zacharia

Answer 3

I used following solution for this problem, and it is working for me:

DataSet ds = new DataSet();
ds.ReadXml(Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, "MyProd.application"));
DataTable dt = new DataTable();
if (ds.Tables.Count > 1) {
    dt = ds.Tables[1];
    MessageBox.Show(dt.Rows[0]["version"].ToString());
}

Oecology

Upvote because it is simple and a light operation, whereas, even MS doesn't provide a good way to access this. – Hine

This is the actual correct solution. I just used it. Thanks – Desmid

Answer 4

Based in the answer from Jason, I ended up with this:

Add Reference to System.Deployment.

string versionDeploy = Application.ProductVersion;              
if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached)
{
    this.lblVersion.Caption = string.Format("Versión {0} DESA", versionDeploy);
}
else
{
    if (System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationDeployment.IsNetworkDeployed)
    {
        Version Deploy = System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.CurrentVersion;
        versionDeploy = string.Format("{0}.{1}.{2}.{3}", Deploy.Major, Deploy.Minor, Deploy.Build, Deploy.Revision);
    }
    this.lblVersion.Caption = string.Format("Versión {0} PROD", versionDeploy);
}

Hope it helps.

Olmos

Answer 5

using System.Deployment.Application;

and

string yourPublishedVersionNumber=ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.CurrentVersion.ToString()

Slime

Worth checking for ApplicationDeployment.IsNetworkDeployed for when you run it locally, as otherwise the ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment throws an exception – Meadowsweet

Answer 6

Imports System.Configuration
Public Function GetAppVersion() As String
    Dim ass As System.Reflection.Assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()
    Dim ver As System.Version = ass.GetName().Version
    Return ver.Major & "." & ver.Minor & "." & ver.Revision
End Function

Australia

Not only is it the question, but it is important to note that this grabs the application version NOT the publication version. I have it set to auto-increment on an Excel AddIn, so every publish comes out 1.0.0.138 or something similar while the above code returns 1.0.0.0 which is set under the properties tab. – Hine