Updating my programs on a network

[NewsArchive]

Currently we install our software on each computer, then create a
shortcut for the workstations with the start in pointing to the mapped
drive.

However, now we are getting people that have more than 2 or 3
workstations and it's getting dangerous as they upgrade the software,
some tech opens the program before it's upgraded and they can lose data
as fm3 attempts to downgrade the data.

We have to tell each program on each workstation to get the udpate..
which works great, as long as people do the upgrade first.

So, what are people doing to keep this from happening? Currently for
folks that have a lot of workstations we are just running the software
from the server.. which of course slows things down and causes a lot of
network traffic.


--
Ray Rippey
VMT Software

[NewsArchive]

Hi Ray
Is it possible to install as another name.exe then check for in use of the
old exe and if not in use then delete the original and rename the new. Works
for me but then I do not install on workstations, only on the server.

Neville Wright

[NewsArchive]

Ray,

for the future Iplan something similar for my own software, but have not been that far.

One idea I have in mind is to have my program to check, if an newer version
sits in the subdirectory "\NewerVersion". Maybe a TXT or XML, that holds the
version number

If newer verionexists, then run an Updater.EXE via CHAIN('Updater.EXE'). This
Updater.EXE will remove (rename?) the older program with a message to the user
"Your Program gets updated now", then copy the newer one to its place and does
finally a CHAIN('my.EXE').

As said before, I have not done it yet, but thats at least my layout for the process.

Bye
Wolfgang

Regards,
Wolfgang Orth
www.odata.de

[NewsArchive]

Yes, I'm thinking about something like that... but I need to check on
the server to see if it's updated.. then not run our software so the
files don't get messed up, or just autorun the updater so it will
download and update the latest version.

I just need to figure out where the server is. Right now I'm just
changing the shortcut to point to the data (on the server), but my
program really doesn't know where the data is..or does it?

I'm thinking I may be out of luck for this strategy until I implement
ProPath. That way I'll know exactly where the data is, and can check to
see if the server program (exe) was updated... I really need to do
that..I'm just afraid of messing up my current customers. The older I
get, the more careful I get, which kind of slows me down.

Thanks for the idea,

Ray