This all works fine, except the messages displayed by the AutomaticUpdater are a bit unclear at times. I've tried the different updatetypes with similar results and we don't see an easy way to change messages?
You mean the text show in the AutomaticUpdater? See: Translating the AutomaticUpdater control.
1. I'm prompted to close the program. Makes sense, but how do I do this together with the wyUpdate call from step 2 above so that this prompt does not appear?
You close your app from within your app.
2. If I close the program as prompted, the update works, but the program is not restarted. I understand I haven't told it to restart at this point, but can this be done?
Yes, a few different ways: