How to set up project for easy updating in the future
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Hi all, I'm starting a new project here and I mean from scratch! I'm using Visual Studio. I was thinking of setting up several different projects within the solution because they'd then all be exes and I could update by overwriting other exes while the main program is still running. But I'm not sure if that's the right way of going about things. What's the best way for me to set up my project so that I can update my users in the future while the program is still running? Is it DLLs I want to use? Or what? Thanks!
Denise "Hypermommy" Duggan
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Hi all, I'm starting a new project here and I mean from scratch! I'm using Visual Studio. I was thinking of setting up several different projects within the solution because they'd then all be exes and I could update by overwriting other exes while the main program is still running. But I'm not sure if that's the right way of going about things. What's the best way for me to set up my project so that I can update my users in the future while the program is still running? Is it DLLs I want to use? Or what? Thanks!
Denise "Hypermommy" Duggan
Hi, DLL files won't really help, since they get loaded and locked by the running EXE, so you cannot just hot-swap them. IMO the simplest scheme is having two EXE files: - APP.EXE + its DLL files = the actual application; - LAUNCH.EXE = a very simple EXE that launches APP.EXE, or updates the APP.EXE file. You must keep this one simple, since it will not be able to replace itself. And it should not use any of the app's DLL files. You might consider making it reciprocal, i.e. also teach APP.EXE how to replace LAUNCH.EXE; however this creates the risk that, when something goes wrong, both EXE files become useless. :)
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Hi, DLL files won't really help, since they get loaded and locked by the running EXE, so you cannot just hot-swap them. IMO the simplest scheme is having two EXE files: - APP.EXE + its DLL files = the actual application; - LAUNCH.EXE = a very simple EXE that launches APP.EXE, or updates the APP.EXE file. You must keep this one simple, since it will not be able to replace itself. And it should not use any of the app's DLL files. You might consider making it reciprocal, i.e. also teach APP.EXE how to replace LAUNCH.EXE; however this creates the risk that, when something goes wrong, both EXE files become useless. :)
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
Avoiding unwanted divs (as in "articles needing approval") with the help of this FireFox add-in
That sounds like a very good idea. I was hoping that folks could download updates and apply them without having to exit the program. I guess if there's some way that App could start up the Launch app and then close itself and then the Launch app would relaunch the app, that might work. Could get me into a loop though.... I should definitely think about this one. Any ideas or thoughts? And thanks for your answer!!!! :-)
Denise "Hypermommy" Duggan
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That sounds like a very good idea. I was hoping that folks could download updates and apply them without having to exit the program. I guess if there's some way that App could start up the Launch app and then close itself and then the Launch app would relaunch the app, that might work. Could get me into a loop though.... I should definitely think about this one. Any ideas or thoughts? And thanks for your answer!!!! :-)
Denise "Hypermommy" Duggan
you're welcome. :)
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
The quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get. Show formatted code inside PRE tags, and give clear symptoms when describing a problem.
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you're welcome. :)
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
The quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get. Show formatted code inside PRE tags, and give clear symptoms when describing a problem.
Hi, i did something quite some time ago. i used just one .EXE... if i found one update on the web server i download it to a temp file then i create a batchfile. that renames the files... i run the batchfile and close my application... i use a timeout command on the batch file that way i'm sure the time the user presses a key on the batch file window or the timeout expires my main application windows is already closed....