sredmyer
12/21/2010 5:27:00 PM
On Dec 21, 11:57 am, "DaveO" <d...@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
> I discourage my users from running an executable across the network, it can
> result in sluggish performance when the network is busy.
> I give them a launcher program which when run gets the version numbers of
> the local copy and the master copy on a server, if the master is newer the
> launcher replaces the local copy with that before starting the program.
> There are problems with the mollycoddling attitude of Vista & beyond but
> that can be circumvented by not installing the app anywhere near the Program
> Files folder tree.
>
> DaveO.
>
> "sredmyer" <sredm...@sndirect.com> wrote in message
>
> news:c38e4686-9cc6-4014-b4b0-025a9b0266a2@l17g2000yqe.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > Ok I know this is a VB forum but I hope maybe some of the folks here
> > may have seen this behavior and might be able to shed some light on
> > what is going on.
>
> > Here is the senario. I have an application which is run by many user
> > throughout the company from a network file share. That is to say they
> > have a shortcut on their desktop that points to the executable on the
> > file share. On initial install of the application the installer only
> > copies the dependencies (dlls, ocxs, etc.) to the users local machine.
>
> > Any way I have been doing (over the last couple of days) a lot of
> > incremental fixes which had me deploying the new executable multiple
> > times with only minor differences.
>
> > The problem that I saw was that some users (different ones each time)
> > would still be running the old version of the application after the
> > deployment. Upon checking I realized that their shortcut was indeed
> > pointing to the exe on the network share and they did not have a local
> > version of the exe that was being launched. The interesting thing is
> > that teh version running on their machine did not exist anywhere...so
> > how could it be running???
>
> > Well I have an idea that this may have something to do with the
> > Windows prefetch. It seems that this is supposed to cache parts of
> > executable code thaat is used frequently to speed up the loading of
> > that code. So I wonder if maybe this prefetch mechanisim isn't
> > keeping an old version of my app and that is what these users are
> > running.
>
> > I have not yet been able to find anywhere that explains what is
> > actually kept in the prefetch...when it is used or how it determines
> > that what is there is "dirty". I do know that my application (or part
> > of it anyway) does make it into the prefetch.
>
> > Does anyone know if this could indeed be the case...and if so how can
> > I ensure that the user will always be running the latest version of an
> > executable.
>
> > Thanks,
> > Steve- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Yes that is the way I normally do it as well. However this is a
fairly new position for me and they have been doing it this way for
several years and it is what I am stuck with.