Hi there! I've just started using Patch My PC Home Updater and it successfully updated all of my applications except Fan Control.
Fan Control fails to update while `FanControl.exe` is running, even though Automatically close apps before updating and Silent install are both enabled.
If I manually exit Fan Control first and retry the update, Patch My PC updates it successfully.
Environment
- Patch My PC Home Updater: 5.4.5.0
- Fan Control installed version: V284
- Fan Control target version: V285 (.NET 10)
- Fan Control "Start service on boot": enabled
- "IsAutoAppsCloseBeforeUpdate": true
- "IsSilentInstall": true
Steps to reproduce
1. Start Fan Control normally.
2. Leave `FanControl.exe` running.
3. Run the V284 → V285 update from Patch My PC.
4. The update fails with installer exit code `5`.
5. Exit Fan Control manually.
6. Retry the same update.
7. The update succeeds.
The log from the failed attempt is:
[2026-11-03 15:54:18] DEBUG [FanControl]: Started downloading: 'https://github.com/Rem0o/FanControl.Releases/releases/download/V285/FanControl_285_net_10_0_Installer.exe'.
[2026-11-03 15:54:18] DEBUG [FanControl]: File 'C:\ProgramData\PatchMyPC\FanControl-285.exe' downloaded successfully.
[2026-11-03 15:54:18] DEBUG [FanControl]: Created desktop snapshot.
[2026-11-03 15:54:18] DEBUG [FanControl]: Started installing 'C:\ProgramData\PatchMyPC\FanControl-285.exe' with arguments '/VERYSILENT /NOCLOSEAPPLICATIONS /NORESTARTAPPLICATIONS /NORESTART /SP- /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES'.
[2026-11-03 15:54:25] ERROR System.InvalidOperationException: [FanControl]: Failed to install application: 5 .
at ModernHomeUpdater.ClientApp.Services.Implementations.InstallationManager.InstallApplicationAsync(InstallCommandArgs args)
[2026-11-03 15:54:25] ERROR System.InvalidOperationException: [FanControl]: Failed to install application: 5 .
at ModernHomeUpdater.ClientApp.Services.Implementations.InstallationManager.InstallApplicationAsync(InstallCommandArgs args)
at ModernHomeUpdater.ClientApp.Services.Implementations.InstallerPipeline.InstallWorkerAsync(CancellationToken token)
[2026-11-03 15:54:25] ERROR Failed to perform operation for application due to an error [FanControl]: Failed to install application: 5 ..
[2026-11-03 15:54:29] DEBUG [FanControl]: 'C:\ProgramData\PatchMyPC\FanControl-285.exe' has been removed.
It looks as though Patch My PC is not terminating Fan Control before launching the installer, despite auto-close being enabled. The installer is then launched with /NOCLOSEAPPLICATIONS, so it doesn't close Fan Control itself either.
Is Patch My PC supposed to detect and close Fan Control before updating Fan Control?
I've done some digging and I think I found what's going on:
Fan Control is configured to Run as service, so closing FanControl.exe is not sufficient. The Windows service FanControl.Service remains running in the background.
I reproduced the problem outside Patch My PC by closing FanControl.exe and running the V285 installer directly with the same silent arguments. The installer still failed with exit code 5.
The Inno Setup log showed the actual failure:
C:\Program Files (x86)\FanControl\ADLXBindings.dll
DeleteFile failed; code 5.
Access is denied.
I then checked the running FanControl.Service.exe process and confirmed that it had both of these modules loaded:
ADLXWrapper.dll
ADLXBindings.dll
Stopping the service with:
Stop-Service -Name "FanControl.Service" -Force
in addition to closing FanControl.exe allows the same silent V284 to V285 update to complete successfully.
So for users running Fan Control in service mode, it looks like the auto-close handling needs to stop both FanControl.exe and FanControl.Service before running the installer.
I have tested this with a wrapper around Patch My PC and the update succeeds once both are stopped.