BorlandTalk.com Borland discussion newsgroups   Archives   FAQ   Search   Memberlist   Usergroups   Register   Profile   Log in to check your private messages   Log in  Updating/Upgrading users application          BorlandTalk.com Forum Index -> Delphi Deployment View previous topic :: View next topic   Author Message Rick Anderson Guest Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:03 am    Post subject: Updating/Upgrading users application I maintain a Delphi 7 application installed at an organization at an Air Force base. They were using SMS to push changes to the users. The changes were new versions of the exe, new help/readme files, etc. Now, the Comm Goons for the base have decided to take over the SMS tasking and have prohibited my customer from using SMS. They will handle everything, but on their schedule and not my customers. Here was my idea. I would create a "push" table in the Oracle DB with a variety of attributes (version number, files, file locations, etc). When the user logged in, the program would check the "push" table to see if they are running the latest version. If not I would like to terminate the application, spawn a new application that would read the "push" table and update the user's PC appropriately. Once the update is finished I would restart the main application. My questions are 1) is the a good idea?, 2) How can I spawn the updater program while shutting down the main application, 3) any better solutions?? Thanks Rick Anderson Back to top Bill Todd Guest Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:03 pm    Post subject: Re: Updating/Upgrading users application Rick Anderson wrote: Quote: I maintain a Delphi 7 application installed at an organization at an Air Force base. They were using SMS to push changes to the users. The changes were new versions of the exe, new help/readme files, etc. Now, the Comm Goons for the base have decided to take over the SMS tasking and have prohibited my customer from using SMS. They will handle everything, but on their schedule and not my customers. Here was my idea. I would create a "push" table in the Oracle DB with a variety of attributes (version number, files, file locations, etc). When the user logged in, the program would check the "push" table to see if they are running the latest version. If not I would like to terminate the application, spawn a new application that would read the "push" table and update the user's PC appropriately. Once the update is finished I would restart the main application. My questions are 1) is the a good idea?, 2) How can I spawn the updater program while shutting down the main application, 3) any better solutions?? Thanks Rick Anderson What you propose should work. You should be able to use the following function to launch either program. function fileExec(const aCmdLine: String; aHide, aWait: Boolean): Boolean; var StartupInfo : TStartupInfo; ProcessInfo : TProcessInformation; begin {setup the startup information for the application } FillChar(StartupInfo, SizeOf(TStartupInfo), 0); with StartupInfo do begin cb:= SizeOf(TStartupInfo); dwFlags:= STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW or STARTF_FORCEONFEEDBACK; if aHide then wShowWindow:= SW_HIDE else wShowWindow:= SW_SHOWNORMAL; end; Result := CreateProcess(nil,PChar(aCmdLine), nil, nil, False, NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS, nil, nil, StartupInfo, ProcessInfo); if aWait then if Result then begin WaitForInputIdle(ProcessInfo.hProcess, INFINITE); WaitForSingleObject(ProcessInfo.hProcess, INFINITE); end; end; -- Bill Todd (TeamB) Back to top Rick Anderson Guest Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 7:03 pm    Post subject: Re: Updating/Upgrading users application "Bill Todd" <no (AT) no (DOT) com> wrote in message news:4409af99 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com... Quote: Rick Anderson wrote: I maintain a Delphi 7 application installed at an organization at an Air Force base. They were using SMS to push changes to the users. The changes were new versions of the exe, new help/readme files, etc. Now, the Comm Goons for the base have decided to take over the SMS tasking and have prohibited my customer from using SMS. They will handle everything, but on their schedule and not my customers. Here was my idea. I would create a "push" table in the Oracle DB with a variety of attributes (version number, files, file locations, etc). When the user logged in, the program would check the "push" table to see if they are running the latest version. If not I would like to terminate the application, spawn a new application that would read the "push" table and update the user's PC appropriately. Once the update is finished I would restart the main application. My questions are 1) is the a good idea?, 2) How can I spawn the updater program while shutting down the main application, 3) any better solutions?? Thanks Rick Anderson What you propose should work. You should be able to use the following function to launch either program. function fileExec(const aCmdLine: String; aHide, aWait: Boolean): Boolean; var StartupInfo : TStartupInfo; ProcessInfo : TProcessInformation; begin {setup the startup information for the application } FillChar(StartupInfo, SizeOf(TStartupInfo), 0); with StartupInfo do begin cb:= SizeOf(TStartupInfo); dwFlags:= STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW or STARTF_FORCEONFEEDBACK; if aHide then wShowWindow:= SW_HIDE else wShowWindow:= SW_SHOWNORMAL; end; Result := CreateProcess(nil,PChar(aCmdLine), nil, nil, False, NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS, nil, nil, StartupInfo, ProcessInfo); if aWait then if Result then begin WaitForInputIdle(ProcessInfo.hProcess, INFINITE); WaitForSingleObject(ProcessInfo.hProcess, INFINITE); end; end; -- Bill Todd (TeamB) Please excuse me if I am a little slow in understanding this and maybe its a basic assumption I made that is messing things up. Here is how I think the process should work: 1) User starts MyApp.exe (main program) 2) Just after the login (we need a connection to Oracle), MyApp determines that it is an older version and must be replaced along with any other support files. 3) MyApp informs user of requirement to update, starts MyPush.exe (using fileExec with NoWait) and passing in whatever parameters are necessary. 4) MyApp exits. 5) MyPush copies the new version of MyApp.exe file over the existing version of MyApp.exe file on the users machine and whatever other files are necessary. 6) MyPush starts MyApp.exe (new version now) 7) MyPush exits. All done My assumption in this is that MyApp.exe cannot be running in order to overwrite the file. If this is not the case then the first MyApp process would still be the older version of the codebase even if the underlying exe file was replaced. We would have to stop the intial MyApp process and restart it after the file copying is complete. Is my assumption (and we all know what happens when one assumes things) correct? Thanks very much Rick Anderson Back to top Bill Todd Guest Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 7:03 pm    Post subject: Re: Updating/Upgrading users application Rick Anderson wrote: Quote: Is my assumption (and we all know what happens when one assumes things) correct? Yes. -- Bill Todd (TeamB) Back to top Rick Anderson Guest Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 6:03 am    Post subject: Re: Updating/Upgrading users application Ok, since the MyApp (see previous postings) process needs to be not running when we overwrite the executable file with the new version, could I do the following? When MyPush exe starts it tests to see if the MyApp processes is still running and if it is it waits to do the copy of the files. Once it no longer detects the MyApp process it can copy the files it needs to do the updates and then restart the MyApp exe and kill itself. Thanks, Rick Anderson "Bill Todd" <no (AT) no (DOT) com> wrote in message news:4409ddde$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com... Quote: Rick Anderson wrote: Is my assumption (and we all know what happens when one assumes things) correct? Yes. -- Bill Todd (TeamB) Back to top Bill Todd Guest Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 3:03 pm    Post subject: Re: Updating/Upgrading users application Rick Anderson wrote: Quote: Ok, since the MyApp (see previous postings) process needs to be not running when we overwrite the executable file with the new version, could I do the following? Yes. Another alternative is just add a call to Sleep in the push program so it waits a couple of seconds before it starts to copy files. -- Bill Todd (TeamB) Back to top Stu Guest Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 10:03 pm    Post subject: Re: Updating/Upgrading users application Bill Todd wrote: Quote: Rick Anderson wrote: Also might want to consider: 1. copy new version to a temporary name, ".exe.new" 2. confirm copy by filesize, a checksum, etc 3. once confirmed, rename original file to ".exe.old" 4. rename new file, e.g. remove ".new" 5. method for removing ".old" files at some point -- Stuart Back to top Doug Stephens Guest Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:03 pm    Post subject: Re: Updating/Upgrading users application Stu wrote: Quote: Bill Todd wrote: Rick Anderson wrote: Also might want to consider: 1. copy new version to a temporary name, ".exe.new" 2. confirm copy by filesize, a checksum, etc 3. once confirmed, rename original file to ".exe.old" 4. rename new file, e.g. remove ".new" 5. method for removing ".old" files at some point -- Stuart This seems to work for me, even if users are running the exe I can rename it and/or delete it (under XP). 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