Dockli is designed to keep your whole fleet current with zero administrative effort. There are no patches to schedule, no update rings to build, and no prompts for users to click. This page explains the mechanism and the handful of things worth knowing.
Silent auto-updates
Every running copy of Dockli runs a background update loop. About every four hours it checks for a newer version, and if one is available it downloads it and applies it in the background using Velopack, pulling releases from Azure Blob storage. The update is applied and the app restarts itself into the new version.
The whole cycle is silent: no prompt, no progress dialog, nothing to download manually, and no interruption to the user. If the feed is briefly unreachable or the network hiccups, the check is quietly skipped and simply retried on the next cycle — an update problem never disturbs the user.
Per-user, so updates need no admin rights
Because Dockli installs per-user under the user’s own profile, updates apply in the user’s context with no elevation. The user doesn’t need to be a local administrator for updates to land — the same reason the initial install needs no admin rights.
Why there are no MSI update rings
Traditional MSI-based apps make you build deployment rings, stage releases, and push each update through your management tooling. Dockli doesn’t work that way. Because every client self-updates from the release feed on its own four-hour cadence, there is nothing to ring and nothing to push. You deploy the installer once (see Deploy to your tenant); from then on the app maintains itself.
This means you don’t repackage Dockli for each new version in Intune or Configuration Manager. Deploy it once and let it self-update.
Forcing an update
If you want a machine on the newest version immediately rather than waiting for the next background cycle, fully quit Dockli and reopen it. On the next launch it picks up and applies any pending update right away. That’s the only “manual” action there is — and it’s rarely needed.
Version consistency across the fleet
Because every client checks on the same roughly four-hour cadence, a new release naturally rolls out across your whole fleet within a few hours of publication, with no coordination on your part. Machines that were off or offline catch up automatically the next time Dockli runs and can reach the feed. The practical result is a fleet that converges on the current, supported version on its own — which also keeps entitlement and File Explorer behavior consistent for everyone.
Keeping the feed reachable
Silent updates depend on outbound HTTPS to Dockli’s release storage. If your network is locked down, make sure the Dockli update endpoints are allowlisted so clients can stay current. See Endpoints to allowlist.
The WebView2 dependency
Dockli’s interface renders inside Microsoft Edge WebView2, which ships with current Windows 10 and Windows 11 — so on a healthy, up-to-date Windows machine there is nothing extra to install. WebView2 itself is serviced by Windows and Microsoft Edge updates, not by Dockli, so keeping Windows current keeps the WebView2 runtime current too. On the rare machine where WebView2 is missing, install the Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime once and Dockli will render normally.
Where to go next
- Deploy Dockli to your tenant — the one-time rollout
- Installing Dockli — the per-user install and requirements
- Endpoints to allowlist — what to open for updates and Microsoft 365
- Uninstalling and offboarding — clean removal