Simple Update Tool

Question

I am looking for a very simple update tool that can be sent out to various sites and update their applications and database.

I need the tool to be configurable by non developers. I.e. support staff.

The tool will need to be able to copy DLL files into the program location.

It should be able to find the program location, and read in the configuration file to find the database location and connection details.

It should be able to update the configuration files.

If this tool can support roll back it would be an added extra.

I am not looking for a tool like install sheild etc. as this will require a developer to use.

Open source projects, freeware or commerical applications are all acceptable.

If you have any idea, tips or suggestions they are all welcome.

Answer 1

This is the classic use case for having an installer for your application. The installer will copy your DLLs etc into a folder. You can then author updates or patches which can do an update of your application with newer files.

I'm not sure what you mean by "developer use". Do you mean a developer would have to create the installer project? If so, that is not really true. but yes, they would have to learn the tool is it is support you want authoring your install/updates.

There are some free tools to build windows installers. Wix is one and Inno Setup is another.

As far as updating SQL databases, Red Gate's packager is pretty simplistic. It does nothing more than wrap an update script into an executable. You can do this on your own of course if you have a tool to create a change script. The problem here is that the target database must always match the one you generated the change script on.

We use DbGhost PackagerPlus. This tool actually bundles the compare engine so that the target database can be any previous version and it will still be updated. The packager call also be called from the command line so you can run it from your installer.