Question

I need to update my application from a central server.

The application checks always if it is a correct version, against the server installation.

So when it is not, I need it to update itself.

So how can I copy the EXE if it is running? What solution do I have?

Answer 1

As you can see by all the answers there is no set way to do this, so I thought I would add the way we have successfully done this.

1. We never run an application directly from the network.
2. We run the application from the local machine and have it copy from the network on startup.

We do this using an application launcher. It downloads an XML file that contains CRC and Version Resource Values for the application files. The XML File is created during the deployment process, in a FinalBuilder Script.

The application then compares the XML File to local content, and copies down needed files. Finally we then launch the application in question. This has worked well for deploying an application that serves around 300 local users. Recently we switch from a file copy to an HTTP download as we found problems with remote user disconnecting drives.

We still still build installations (With Innosetup) to get the basic required files deployed.