I just try to figure out a good solution on designing the update process for a windows form application i created. I think of a button inside the app for manual checking of an update and checking when starting the app. Only I'm not familiar with technics. I though to have the update setup file in a FTP Server and checking the server for an update with a txt file in there with filename and version info. When app is finished downloading the update, closing and starting the update setup file.
Any suggestions, opinions on the subject?
Application updates these days are one of those necessary evils. Thinking of applications that update automatically, I tend to group them into two categories:
Clean updating, once a month or less often, a speedy update without a lot of nagging or clicking. And definitely no sneaky software included like toolbars and desktop search programs... Firefox tends to be "nice" about updates, though its addons can be naggy.
The other group nags constantly, requires a lot of button clicks or that you reboot, takes a long time to 'unpack' (Adobe Acrobat, looking at you), changes settings against your wishes (Java), or is just generally unpleasant.
With those points in mind, design your automatic update to be as user-friendly as possible, and plan on your users sometimes wanting to skip the update (unless it is critical to operation).
At my company we have a small application that requires updates, but also must function in a very time-sensitive environment. To facilitate updates, we have it do the following:
At startup, a text file is checked on an internal URL (this could be an HTTP or FTP call). The version number is compared to the contents of the file.
If the software is up to date, nothing more is done. If not, a dialog is presented informing the user that the application must perform an update. (In our case there is no option to cancel or wait, but I highly recommend it if you can.)
A setup file is downloaded from the same site, and launched via Process.Start command, with some switches to perform an unattended install/update.
The application is launched after installation and the interruption to user is minimal.
Some things you may want to do differently:
If not checking for updates at startup, provide an option to schedule update checking or manually perform an update check from (for example) a Help menu.
If possible allow the user to cancel or delay an update; there's nothing more frustrating than trying to get work done with a popup dialog asking you to perform an update every few minutes.
Make sure you test your install packages or patches before deployment! (Voice of experience!)
Use ClickOnce http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t71a733d%28VS.80%29.aspx
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/041229.htm
Kind regards.
Related
i am working on an asp.net web application, where tasks are assigned to users, we set standard time to every task, in that standard time period the user has to finish the task, there are two buttons on the page, proceed and save, when a user clicks on proceed button, the time is saved in database as starttime, and when the user clicks on save button, the time is saved in database as endtime. this way we are capturing the time period within which the user is completing the task.
the standard time is set on an average time study basis, not every time the task takes the same amount of time.
often users can complete the task in very less time than the standard time, in this case the users are proceeding the task and even after completing the task, instead of saving it, they lock the system and go for tea breaks and after coming from break, they save the task.
i want to save some information on the web page when they lock the pc even when the browser is minimized.
i tried implementing applet using jintellitype library but its not capturing the key combinations that are used by windows os.
i also tried using Silverlight but there is no such support as in winforms application in Silverlight, i have to create a com component or something that interacts with system32 or some native api. it doesn't seem easy for me, i would like to know if there is such library for Silverlight.
it should be browser independent, i haven't tried ActiveX, but i think it can be done using ActiveX, but i don't want to use ActiveX as it runs only on IE.
i want to know all the possible solutions to achieve this.
thanks in advance.
Why don´t you set a kind of timer-check to know if the last time is too far from the correspondent (and previewed) time to perform the job? If a task may expend, for instance, from 1 to 5 minutes, have 21 minutes is too far.
Why din´t you create a timer to TIMEOUT user? If users know they will be timed-out after some time, probably, they won´t leave to coffre-break during the test (a kind of penalty must be aggregated on this, like start from the initial point if timeout).
Why don´t you automatically save the record after the job finish, instead obly the user to press a button?
Until I know, you can perform SUSPEND mode, but not detect them if started from other apps.
I have explained my project below and asked some questions with "My Question-" tag.
I have working on a project. At the time of windows logon page if I enter a wrong password my cam should take the picture, If I open regedit my system should take a screen shot and save these images in C:\Windows\system32\new folder (I tried a lot making this work with the help of manifest files but failed everytime) and emails it whenever finds an internet connection
I have a form based app because I didn't find any other way to capture image from webcam directly but taking input from pictureBox1.Image.
My cam, screenshot,email (didn't find a way to autocheck if has internet connection available or not) and 3 events checker for "firewall enable/disable, windows logon failure , regedit event called" are done and they are working good.
What I need to do is to assemble these codes to work as an app and running in the background continuously from the time of windows startup to shutdown
To validate positive events I need to make a desktop based db ("My Question"- still figuring out either to choose sql or localdatabase in c#. Please also tell me a suitable solution.I have to delete all the entries from the db once a day is over). The db would contain the following columns (event id, event name, event timestamp).
I want my app to check if this very event exists in the db then it should ignore the event generated on windows event log else it should make a new row with the db columns and it should do the following actions based on the event like taking webcam pic or screenshot.
"My Question"- I want my app to be live at the time of windows logon page. A lot of programs start later when you are authenticated but I need my program to be live at the time of logon page. Do I have to make 1 or many services? or multi-threaded? because in the typical form based app you can only call one function at a time and wait for it to return something or perform some task/action and then you call the second third whatever.
"My Question"- Do I need to use the backgroundworker in c#
Please help!
You have a lot of things going on here for one question.
You can put all your code in a background service that gets started at boot time. There is a walkthrough here to show you how to do that (along with a million other sites).
Addressing some of the other issues you listed:
Google is your friend...
Webcam - Found a quick reference here and here
File Modification - Another SO thread here
SQL vs. Other Database - Not sure you need anything elaborate here, probably something you can put together pretty quickly. Another SO thread addressing that here
Good Luck!
I've found the following question asking whether it's possible to find out whether an app update is available:
Programmatically check Windows Store App update
(Not my primary question, but is there a better way?)
I know that it's possible to configure Windows 8.1 to auto-update apps, but this doesn't always happen as soon as I want.
So, now I know that an update is available, can I trigger the update from within the app?
If so, would this trigger have to take me through the Windows Store (which won't be possible in my scenario as I'm running in kiosk mode) or can it just start the auto-update?
Any thoughts/ideas on how I might be able to achieve this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
I've run into this problem as well.
What you can do is to check to see if there is an update available, then notify your users that they can either wait or update manually (through the Windows Store app, which you can open for them). You can also notify them of the importance level of the update (just UI fixes/additional features or is it a critical security patch?).
Lastly, you can also register the users for toast updates via an Azure Notification Hub, then send out a toast notification about it.
If it's truly critical, you can also include code in your app to do something like lock down unless it's fully updated or something similar.
In my experience, as of right now, these are our only options. Maybe one day they'll allow us to force an update via a Background Worker or something while the app isn't running. As of right now, that's not an option though.
I am developing a C# application. I am looking for a way to monitor different events in 3rd party applications.
Example 1: Calculator is running, and I want to know when the user has clicked on "=" button.
Example 2: Skype is running and I want to monitor when the user hits the "Call" button.
Example 3: Word is running and I want to monitor when the user opens the "Font" drop down list.
I am not looking for simple Mouse or Keyboard events.
Take a look at EventSpy, Both of those seams to do what you need.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/11918/EventSpy
http://eventspy.codeplex.com/
You basically need to tap into the "Windows Messaging" loop. In order to properly filter the GAZILLION messages that come flying through you'll also need to be able to periodically scan through all of the active windows to see which ones (if any) are relevant to you.
Be aware that this whole subsystem of windows is a GIANT security hole. (I have not worked with it much since NT4 / W95/W98 days so they might have tried attempts to "secure" it since then so it might be even harder to get to than it used to be.
You're going to need a good ide / 3rd party tools to help you get started on your way to have some idea of what you're looking for.
In a "previous" life we used this basic technique to get ~4,000 workstations to install their own software, updates, patches, etc through monitoring for existence of certain windows, controls, etc and "injecting" messages into the Windows Messaging loop to control Application Setup Programs, configuration changes that were not stored in the registry, etc, etc...
Some explanation: for a project I'm working on I have to write a program that is running in the background, detects changes to files, and uploads the modified files to a web service to make it available to others. Quite simple synchronization if it were not for the case when a user modifies a big file and decides to shutdown its computer right after the edit.
I could cancel the upload and wait for the next reboot to do the upload, but I can imagine the user downloading the file from the web to another computer the next morning and don't understanding why his changes from last night aren't there.
So my idea was to detect when the users logs off or reboots Windows, and if I'm in the middle of an upload, just asking the user "We're still synchronizing file Foo.txt that you just changed. Are you sure you want to reboot ? You're changes won't be available to others until you restart your computer !". If the users says no, I'd need to cancel the reboot/loging off
Is this possible?
There is a static class called SystemEvents that exposes this behaviour:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.win32.systemevents.aspx
However, it cannot differentiate between certain actions and doesn't pause the OS process time-out guard. I used it once, but the default time-out as configured in the registry is a little short so will likely need increasing.
To cut a long story short, it all felt a little hackish.
To add to #Adam's answer, if you need to tell the difference between logoff and shutdown/reboot, you can handle the WM_QUERYENDSESSION message.
"Shutdown Changes for Windows Vista" is a useful article for understanding the shutdown timeout.
Trying to block a shutdown is a lossy proposition these days, it's no longer possible to do so in Vista and up. A prompt isn't readable nor reachable. Using a service is highly indicated here, lets you survive a user log-off. And a reboot, your service will start running again automatically, letting you complete the job.