🚀 go-pugleaf

"Curt" <a@aol.com> wrote in message
news:40332606$1@newsgroups.borland.com...

> My problem is that I can't find a way to reliably install the
> updates because the application itself has a lock on the
> underlying executable file.

What you ask for is not doable as you describe it.  Once you download the
files, you must shut down the application first.  Which means that you will
have to either 1) use a second application to install the files and then
restart the first executables, or 2) use MoveFileEx() to delay the install
of the files until the machine is rebooted.

> I've thought of firing up a script which sleeps for a few seconds
> in order to allow the application to exit but that doesn't seem like
> the best solution.

That will work fine, although sleeping is not the best approach.  It would
be better for the script to be an actual application, and then have the
closing application can pass its current process ID to the second
application.  That way, the second app can obtain a handle to the first
app's process and then pass that handle to the WaitForSingleObject()
function to actually wait for the first app to fully shut down before then
continuing with the install and restarting of the first app.

> Ideally, I would like to close the application, update the
> files and then automatically restart the updated application.

You need a second helper application for that.

The alternative is to move your main app's functionality to DLLs, and then
have the app simply unload the DLLs while they are being updated and then
re-load them afterwards, all while the app itself is still running.  Of
course, if you need to update the exe itself, you will stll have to shut it
down fully.


Gambit