I did some survey on MS .net rich client automated upgrading solution recently, here is the detail

1 MS Updater Application Block
It is a open source framework that supports .net 1.1 framework and VS.2003, it includes a simple start app and a configuration file in the client side, the configuration file stores the address of file server that might be FTP, web, or shared file folder. There is a ServerManifest.xml that is located in the root folder of file server; this file includes all of files that need to be upgraded and their latest version number.
When the start app is launched, it will check the info inside the ServerManifest.xml, and compare with current application files in the client side, if the version # is not matched, and there are new version available, the start app will pop up a window to ask if you‘d like to upgrade the current application files, and the start app will do all of file downloading and replacing automatically if you client YES.

MS Updater Application Block

2 DotNet No-Touch Deployment (NTD)
DotNet No-Touch Deployment is a zero deployment application solution (smart client).
it supports .net 1.1 framework and VS.2003 too, it includes two methods.

the first method is that hosting the winform application into a web server, so user can lanuch it with a URL in IE or commend line. the app will be downloaded from web and setting into local internet cache, it doesn't require download every time unless there are new version in server side. and it could use the web service to connect with database, so the client side doesn't need install the oracle client. it requires a little changes in start section of winform app to make it work.

another method is embeding the .net winform coltrol into a web page, and put them to web server. it is similar to some original methods such as activex, but MS made some improvement, such as the size of control is much smaller than before.

DotNet No-Touch Deployment (NTD)



3 ClickOnce
ClickOnce is part of .net 2.0 framework, and supports VS.2005; it will be available in 2005.
It provides a home page for every application, the user could access the application by a URL inside this home page, you could choice to install the app in client machine or run the app in client cache, and it also support automated upgrading if you install the application in the client machine.

ClickOnce

4 Avalon
Avalon will be with the windows longhorn that was scheduled to be released in 2006, and it will support the Windows XP too. its start app is a XAML file that could be located in the client PC or server side such as a web server, this XAML file is similar to web page, but it doesn’t require IE, Avalon also support automated upgrading.

There are also some third party solutions available such as updated component suite; they are similar to MS Updater Application Block.