Program Updater

[lilboi]

Hey guys!

I have written a program, which proved to be very buggy, that I have installed in who we hope to be our soon to be clients.

So far, I have walked in there and have reinstalled the program enough times for them to be so sick of my face.

What I wanna do instead is give them an updater program which they will run as a separate program and it will download and updated version and do the install(if necessary.)

I've never done this before and so far, my understanding of how it will go is like this.

Updater checks server(http) for version.
Updater decides to download.
Updater installs the downloaded file, possibly uninstalling automatically the program.

Question is....are these do-able? I mean, can't I just download the .exe file and replace my program with it?

 

[ArtieChoke]

I mean, can't I just download the .exe file and replace my program with it?

Short answer - yep. If you use any dlls you've created, make sure you have binary or project compatibility set.

"I think we're all Bozos on this bus!" - Firesign Theatre

 

[lilboi]

Hi Artichoke!

uumm....I have 1 dll that I created. How do i make sure binary or project compatibility?

 

[ArtieChoke]

Select that in the properties/option pages (I don't remember exactly where it is off hand) when creating your dll file. That way, if you change your dll file and recompile, you can just drop it on the user's computer without having to register it again (unless you add new routines).

If you're interested, I've created some code to auto-register dll files (if the user has write-access to to the registry) that you could use in your program so you don't need to do an install every time you upgrade your program and dll.

"I think we're all Bozos on this bus!" - Firesign Theatre

 

[lilboi]

sure! that would be interesting!

I actually only have the connection string and login and pw to the database on my .dll file and the .exe pretty much houses everything else.

But the code will be helpful incase I have to do an update on the login and pw. hehe (yes, i know i shouldn't have login and pw in dll file but i don't have time to create client/server)

It will be helpful Artiechoke! thanks!

 

[ArtieChoke]

See this thread where I posted the code:

thread222-1041421


"I think we're all Bozos on this bus!" - Firesign Theatre

 

[lilboi]

Great! Thanks Artiechoke!

I've tested it out and replacing the .exe file alone will work as an update.

I will require a separate program, the updater.exe to download and replace the file.

How should I go abouts doing that? Referencing to an FTP and checking the date is one way, I read that around here.

Are there other ways aside from setting up an ftp?

 

[crawf061]

I would be interested in finding out if there are other ways aside from setting up an ftp...

A tool of this nature would be very helpful, preferably not using an ftp though.

 

[BobRodes]

If you don't make any changes to any dlls that you create, and don't change any of your references to dlls or ocxs, you can indeed just send the exe file and copy over the old one.