Releasing updates

[Matthew Berg]

You may (or may not) have noticed that PowerBASIC tools install themselves into separate folders where the version number of the product is part of the name of the folder into which the application is installed. Thus, you can have simultaneously installed and operational, without overwriting previous versions, PB/DLL 5, PB/DLL 6, PB/DLL 7...

What I do when upgrading one of my apps, is to make sure it is installed as an UPGRADE only, overwrite all of the main program files etc. and maybe have an accompanied program to clear up and convert some of the old file formats.

I also think including a repair utility is a good thing with some programs, such as in IE5.
That way if anything goes wrong with the program, the user has a way to 'repair' the application settings and restore executables.

Other than that, or for much larger applications, I use chris' idea.

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Kev G Peel
KGP Software
Bridgwater, UK.
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Chris Boss]

Todd;

I have an opinion on this.

I prefer to "never" release a new version of a program with the "same" name if possible. This can cause problems when an older version overwrites a new one.

Now sometimes, it may not be a problem, but if it can be avoided, this is good.

What I like to do is embed the version number in the filename , so the filename changes as the version changes. This is really important if you sell programming tools in DLL form.

ie.

myap10.exe (or myapp10.dll)

and then

myapp11.exe
myapp20.exe
etc...

This makes it easy to figure out which version is which and also saves your customers some grief.

An example of NOT doing this that has caused much grief, is the VB 5/6 runtime DLLs. Microsoft has multiple service packs (upgrades) of each one (3 upgrades for VB 5), but they all use the same DLL name.

Many a VB app has installed the "old" version over the new one and then some VB apps won't run.



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[Todd Wasson]

I don't know if this question really belongs on this board, but when creating a program that will have future updated versions, is there a special trick? Or do you just have the new version overwrite the old version? What do you pro's do?

~Todd