I am trying to make the following. I have a class that at midmight it makes a log from what happened in a SQL table and makes an excel file of it. My issue is that I was told that it is inexcusable to have this application running all day only to have it run once a day and that I should do this with a system event, but I have no idea how to do this. Help, please?
The easiest solution is to use Windows' built in Scheduled Task support to run your app. Or, if you're using Microsoft Sql Server, a scheduled Sql Agent job.
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I have a windows application which needs to run a sqlfile stored in the application itself.
I need to know how to store Sql file in the application itself and then run it.
I know how to run a sql file stored in windows explorer but this is unknown to me.
If there is any particular way to do this, do tell me. If it's not possible then there might be any alternative to this.
Help appreciated.
Suppose i have a program.. how can i accomplish this?
i want the program to have an update feature. so its like,, when i posted a new version in the ftp server, the old program searches the ftp server and if theres a new version, it will download the new program and delete the old ones.
thank you
PS: it can be the user presses the update button, then the program will download the contents to one temp directory, then deletes itself and transferring the new files to the current folder
or it can be an auto update, like the program checks every 12 hours.
You can achieve this using ClickOnce.
You could end up using a pre-executable that performs the update. Starting the application not with the main exe, but with one that performs the update and then launches the main app. The main app checks for update and downloads it, but actually is not doing anything more than that.
Your options are either ClickOnce, which is the superior option of the two, or create a windows service that does the updating for you. The service runs all the time and pols for updates, downloads any and installs them. The reason this is superior to a preloader as suggested by Sascha is that in an environment where users log on with low level privileges the service will have admin privileges and be able to update the application.
Having said this, ClickOnce is the way to go.
I have a system with two web applications, one web service, one Windows service and a WPF application running 24 hours a day on a touch screen. All of them are connected to a database.
I want to be able to upgrade all of those applications by uploading upgrade files to the database and set the date and time for the upgrade to occur.
I have one idea on how to do this.
An application has a thread running to look for available upgrades.
When an upgrade is found, the file is downloaded to the application's computer.
When download is complete, the applications triggers a restart.
When application starts, it looks for an upgrade file on the local computer.
If upgrade is available, the application upgrades itself.
I'm not really sure how all these steps should be done yet, especially the last one. But I want some comments about this. Is this completely wrong? Am I on the right track? Any tips on how to do it like this or in another way?
I think you're going down the right lines here. A polling application to check the database for the existence of a new update followed by an xcopy deployment script would do it.
This might be doable from a PowerShell script too, that runs on a schedule, say every 10 minutes. It could check the database, close the process and service, xcopy the application (from a shared source) and restart the said service and app.
All this assumes that you are not using Windows Installer to package and deploy your application initially. Although an xcopy to directly replace binaries wouldn't hurt an MSI package, it's not recommended. We use AD MSI deployment at work and it's a pain at the best of times!
MSDN contains references for MSI vs XCopy deployment for WPF applications (as well as the security requirements).
This was the first link I found for querying SQL from PowerShell: http://elegantcode.com/2008/03/27/discovering-windows-powershell/
Good luck!
You will have trouble doing this with ClickOnce. ClickOnce would only work for your WPF app, it can't do anything with the services or web application. You could write a separate ClickOnce-deployed "Updater" app whose job is to update the other apps, but that still seems a little iffy.
It may sound stupid, but I'd start with the simplest thing I could think of. How about using Dropbox to push your update files; then an AutoHotKey script that runs on startup, watches the Dropbox folder for new updates, and runs them?
Sounds hokey, but it's something you could prove out in an hour or two.
Microsoft have an Updater Application Block which might be what you are looking for.
Do you really want to run an update from the database or is this just a possible solution? You are reinventing the wheel.
Have a look at ClickOnce deployment, everything you need is already done for you and integrated into VisualStudio. If you use something that already exists you have the benefit of existing documentation, helpful blogs of people who have already gone through the pain points and updates and fixes.
ClickOnce Deployment
ClickOnce Deployment in .NET Framework 2.0
How you want to use ClickOnce depends on what you want to get out of it. Out of the box you can very easily create a deployment that checks for an upgrade every time you run the application but you can also with a little bit of code have the application check for updates whilst it is running.
The Updater Application BlockVersion that Dominic Zukiewicz mentioned is the pre cursor to ClickOnce.
EDIT
ClickOnce provides a roll-back scenario on both the Server and Client end. The client can roll back to a previous version using the normal add remove programs dialogue and you can easily republish a previous version.
You could create another Windows Service that does the updates on a daily basis. The service would look on a specific folder if there are any updates to be process. For example it could look for an xml file which tells it the new version of the application and what the files to update are. It would shut down the application/services, backup the files that it needs to update, start the application/services, and clean up backup files keeping at least three backup files. The service should keep track of the last and current version installed so that when it reads the xml file it can check if it is a new update or not or you can simply delete the xml file when it completes.
How about Google Omaha? It's an open source tool, currently used to push updates of Google Chrome and Google Earth. Omaha can handle application installation, too. A high-level design overview can be found here.
We have a .NET application that we distribute to our users via an MSI installer package. We have C++ applications that run each morning to see if the user's copy of the application is out of date, and if so, we pull down the new MSI and install it. If the application is running, we need to take it down so we can perform the update.
Our problem is that every once in a while it seems like windows "loses" our application. It will not report that the process is running - though it is. It will allow us to overwrite, or even delete, the in-use executable file without taking down the application.
Maybe this is something that is common -- but we can't figure out what is going on! Does anyone have any insight into this situation?
It seems like a temporary copy of our application is getting created, and the program is getting ran from that. But if that is the case, why doesn't it happen all the time?
EDIT:
In our program, We are using the "EnumProcesses" function from the Platform SDK, PSAPI.dll, to enumerate all of the running processes.
Could it be that either the script or the application runs as a 64-bit program, and the other as a 32-bit program? If so, then on 64-bit machines the update check could be looking in the wrong location for an existing application and thus reporting it as missing?
What mechanism are you using to check to see if the process is running or not?
Try using something like process explorer to see what path the executable image is loaded from - it should be listed in the modules section.
I need to create an Intranet website (page) which allows users to indicate a local network folder to copy to a production location. Currently this is done manually using xcopy in batch files.
What I am looking for is approaches on triggering the copy so it's done in the middle of the night and an approach to copy the files. I suppose I can run xcopy from my application, but is this a good way to do this? Should I use System.IO name space objects to copy the files? Is there a better way all together?
The application will be written in C# and ASP.NET. We currently use .NET 2.0/3.0, but I have no issues using .NET 3.5 if it contains better libraries for the solution.
Basically a user will indicate which network folder they need copied along with some other business information. The folder indicated and all sub-folders need to be copied to target location (not set by user).
If there is already an application out there which does this, I am not opposed to that either. I have no need to write stuff that already exists.
For the first problem (copying at midnight), I suggest setting up a scheduled task that runs the already existing batch file (or any program, for that matter)
For the scheduling part you could use Quartz.NET
It won't be difficult to write an xcopy operation in C# using System.IO. In fact, this would give you the greatest degree of flexibility.
I think you should consider using Windows Powershell to do your copying (or another scripting language if you prefer), driven by Windows Scheduled Tasks. Though you could write an application to do this, I think it would be much more maintainable to have a script that others could edit.
The simplest solution would be to wrap your xcopy commands in a command file and schedule it to run whenever you want as a Scheduled Task on your web server.
If you want to get fancy, you can write up a web interface to the task scheduler - I'm pretty sure I've seen open source examples of that type of application too.
you've tagged this ASP but if you aren't fussy I'd recommend a combination of Windows builtin Scheduled Tasks and rsync. If it really has to be automated from an intranet page (and you're in IE) then some form of ActiveX or downloadable script/application would be needed to configure the schedule.