sjacques

I have a situation where I need to support field-deployed applications, i.e. software, configuration, and datafile updates. This will usually include adding/deleting datafiles, replacing (overwriting) a config file, and in some cases upgrading the LV exe as well... I searched for this topic in the LAVA forum, and I found one topic list that generically went over programmatically polling an FTP server for a new file and shutting down the local app, installing the update, and restarting the local app, however I have a few questions that weren't addressed/answered in that topic... My first question is how can I determine where the installed application resides? During the installation, the user could select a different drive and/or directory to install the application to. Also, is there an easy way to update just a config (text) file or support data file without having to build a new application/installer? Should I be looking at another installer program other than the LV App Builder? Basically I'm looking to make a 'patch' program that I can e-mail out and that when received the user can copy to the local machine and run the updater. The updater would complete it's task without needing to prompt the user, i.e. closes the app if open and (optionally) restarts it after updating. The assumption is that the updater will be written in the same version as the application, eliminating the need to package a run-time engine with the build and keeping the file size down to a minimum. Anyone have any simple examples or even a simple outline? BTW, I'm using LV 8.20, soon to be upgrading to 8.5.. Thank you.