[Feature Request] Convert installer to MSIX

[rbwhitaker]

Describe the feature you'd like to see We currently use ClickOnce as the installer technology. It's convenient because it allows us to do automatic updates. Unfortunately, ClickOnce isn't getting any love these days, and isn't being ported to .NET Core.

Microsoft recommends using MSIX instead. I'll admit, I don't know a whole lot about this right now, but we should put it on the radar, because if we want to convert this to .NET Core, we probably need to switch to MSIX (or something else besides ClickOnce).

Describe why this feature would be helpful to you Switching away from ClickOnce is necessary to switch to .NET Core.

Additional context None.

[rbwhitaker]

There are a whole lot of unknowns here, unfortunately. I'm a little concerned that using MSIX outside of the Windows Store might not work so well. We'll need to prove it out.

And I suppose it's worth saying that the real goal here is to build a system in which:

• The program is easy to get onto people's machines.
• Ideally associate .realm with the program.
• Make automatic updates (or at least checking for updates) dead simple.

If we can meet those conditions and not use MSIX, I'm fine by that.

[rbwhitaker]

ClickOnce is available on .NET 5. Converting to MSIX could still make sense, but the primary motivation for the switch is now gone.