software update

Question

Hi.

i want general idea about how to write the software update for an application?

which technology is simple like VC++ or .Net?..

i just need the idea in brief.

Answer 1

In general a software update is applied with an updater program. Otherwise running copies of the program make it hard to patch.

Simplistically:

• On every start of the program, connect to server with web service and download new install, if any.
• Program calls updater.exe and exits.
• updater.exe applies patch, and restarts program.

Answer 2

The following answer based on the assumption that you are refering to the auto-update for a software. Namely when launching your application you do a check to see if there is newer version available, and automatically download/install the new version if it is the case.

Microsoft ClickOnce is the simplest way if your application is .NET based. Here is a link that you can start with. It can be used with minimize effort.

An example of implementation from scratch using C++ can be found here.

All these kind of ideas needs to solve the following problems:

1. Add mechanism in your software to uniquely identify the version informtaion.
2. Put the available (latest) software version information in some place that client can access (probably and HTTP server)
3. In your application you need to access to the public version information and compare with the client software version.
4. Implement the update functionality. That includes download the binary. Close the current application and run the installation. And then restart the application.

Note that for the step 4 it needs to close the running application and restart it after installation is done. This implies that you may have to do it in another process.