Forum Moderators: phranque
It's reasonably safe to assume Windoze updates are done using ASP scripting. Perhaps some of our ASP wizards will offer additional comments.
On my Pc I have a directory C:\Program Files\WindowsUpdate\V4 which seems to store files used by Windows Update. I'm running 98SE btw.
Allen
As far as I know it doesnt actually check version numbers of specific files as there are far to many to identify the state of a system using this method - it merely queries the registry to check which patches claim to be installed.
The original question was about self-updating products...
Why not just have the web-based data marked with a version code? That way all the application needs to know is;
a) where the update page lives on your website
b) what version it currently has
c) what version the website has
That's similar to the way things like anti-virus scanners and similar products work...
Your application passes the data version it has to a web page which returns something which lets the application know either;
a) you have the most current data
b) here's where the get the perfect update from
This method works really well because it supports both complete updates as well as partial updates based on the relative version numbers of the data.
- Tony
The simplest mehtod is to download a file which has the current version number in it. If the dowloaded version number is higher, there's an update, so go get it.
That way you don't have to have anything special server side.
Allen
