So, just to confirm: here's what currently happens in the Launcher, soon to be called Update, program:

1 Check for newer version
2 Copy to local drive if found
3 Start the application (currently with RUN)

So if steps 2 and 3 become ShellExecute() commands, the Launcher/Update should work more or less the same as before--but with the UAC dialog (hopefully, just one)?

I'm having trouble with the manifest and may or may not get that to work. I'm trying to follow Calvin's instructions but without Windows 7, it's more difficult. We've had one user running the app in Windows 7 since February and the only thing that doesn't work for her is the copy command and that's as expected. She's been OK with manual updates since she volunteered to be the guinea pig but that's not the way I want to roll this out to everyone else. They are used to automatic updates.

Another option would be to change the policy settings for the app but since the copy is the only problem, I'd prefer not to do that.

OK, don't know what I was thinking: ShellExecute doesn't appear to have a copy option so step 2 probably should be CopyFile() . I can't find any documentation that says it works with 'runas' though.