If I write a license file to isolated storage in a vb.net winforms app, and the app then undergoes a minor update, does the license file get "carried over" somehow during the update?
Isolated storage seems to use the full version number as the lowest level directory name which makes me think it doesn't.
The license file is needed to allow full use of the app and I don't want users to have to re-enter their license code after an update.
Not sure how the update will be done yet - either Inno setup or Installshield LE.
Any advice appreciated.
If your app is a WinForm one, I advice you not to use IsolatedStorage, which is a little too restrictive and uncustomizable. The IsolatedStorage isn't overriden in Windows Phone and Metro apps but (if I remember well) is in Win Forms. To conclude, it would be better to use a file in another location (like AppData/Roaming/YourCoolAppName), and it has the advantage for you to know exactly where the data is stored.
Related
I am developing a Win8 Store app which allows users to download different types of files from an online learning platform and store them locally. I am also considering the function to help users organize these downloaded files by placing them in different folders (based on course name and etc.).
I was using Documents Library previously. But for every type of file that the user could download, I need to add a file type association, which does not make a lot of sense since my app would be able to open such files. So which local storage should my app use?
Many thanks in advance.
Kaizhi
The access to storage by Windows Store apps is quite restrictive, especially the DocumentsLibrary.
As you have noticed, you need to declare a file type association for every file type you want to read from or write to the DocumentsLibrary. This means your app need to handle file activations for these types in a meaningful way, which your app probably should not do.
But even if you jump through this hoop, there is another one that is not documented on the MSDN page of the DocumentsLibrary, but "hidden" in a lengthy page about app capability declarations: According to the current rules, you are not allowed to use the DocumentsLibrary for anything but offline access to SkyDrive! Bummer...
So what's left?
You can use SkyDrive or another cloud storage to put files in a well known place (which might or might not be somewhere on the hard disk). This is probably both overkill and undesirable in your case.
Or you save the files in the local app storage, provide your own in-app file browser and open the files with their default app. Seems viable to me.
Or, maybe, you can do something with share contracts or other contracts. I don't know much about these yet, but I doubt that they are helpful in your situation.
And that's it...
(Based on my current experience. No guaranty for correctness or completeness)
Is there a way (via shell extension or registry setting) to tell Windows Explorer that it shouldn't read files in the folder being shown in order to extract metadata or create thumbnails?
The problem is that when the user navigates to the folder, Windows Explorer attempts to read all files in the folder and extract certain metadata from them. If the medium is slow, this takes ages and causes unnecessary load on the file system. This is especially true in case of thumbnails, when the whole graphic file is read.
I am looking for ways to do this (restrict Explorer) in code, so "don't use Thumbnail mode" is not an acceptable answer :).
Upd: per-user settings won't work unfortunately cause we as a disk provider can deal only with our own disk (and the user might want to have separate settings for regular disks and virtual disks). I believe there must be some way to "explain" the OS that the drive is slow.
Maybe there's some IRP on driver level that we need to handle to tell the OS that the medium is slow?
Is there a way (via shell extension or
registry setting) to tell Windows
Explorer that it shouldn't read files
in the folder being shown in order to
extract metadata or create thumbnails?
Not that I know off, but depending on the priorities regarding the use case details you outlined there might be two options still to approximate the desired result:
Via group policy
Note that this essential expands/details the network folder related aspect of Freds answer, which you dismissed in your update; however, you claim to be able to deploy shell extensions or registry settings and the following two group policies simply execute the latter by administrative means:
User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Explorer:
Turn off the display of thumbnails and only display icons **on network folders**
Turns off the caching of thumbnails in hidden thumbs.db files.
This boils down to the following registry settings:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer]
"DisableThumbnailsOnNetworkFolders"=dword:00000001
"DisableThumbsDBOnNetworkFolders"=dword:00000001
Of course this is still not per folder, but at least limited to network folders and ignores regular disks and virtual disks.
Via hackish workaround
Given your statement we as disk provider can deal only with our own disk there might be a hackish workaround, though I'm afraid it lacks the last mile (untested by myself).
Starting from Chris W. Reas own answer to How can I suppress those annoying Thumbs.db files in Windows Vista and Windows 7?:
Also worth knowing: In Vista and Windows 7, Thumbs.db applies to network folders only. For local folders, Vista and Windows 7 instead save thumbnail cache information to a database in a local folder at "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer"
Continuing from there, Wil claims the following potentially clever solution to work on a per folder basis:
Go to the drive and create a file called thumbs.db (in notepad or anything), then change the permissions on the file for everyone (including SYSTEM) to deny all.
Unfortunately, aside from the automation requirements to create the dummy thumbs.db in each folder, the outcome depends on how Explorer will react on the inaccessible file - because caching is optional as per group policy, it might as well display thumbnails without caching them, making the bandwidth issue even worse in turn ...
Good luck!
I'm not sure if you can disable thumbnail generation/display for certain folders but this article talks about a script which could quickly disable it via context menu.
The script modifies a value in the registry key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\. I suppose you could find something similar in that key for the other metadata. ShowInfoTip sounds promising. There might be relevant information in other nearby keys.
This may be a complete non-answer depending on your needs, but how about storing the files without file extensions that the OS wants to make thumbnails of? Call it file.jpg.abc and it won't be reading thumbnails, for sure.
It would be useful for many people to know how to completely remove an application from your device when testing.
I have downloaded my app many times now, and likewise have deleted it many times. The problem is when deleting the app, it does not remove things like the persistent object related to my app, or the images downloaded through the app. So, when I download the next build, I have no idea if something broke that is related to building the persistent object or fetching the images since those elements already exist from the last build.
I don't know if this is a cache thing. I don't know if this is expected and I have to use some utility to wipe this data after deleting the app. I can't really find much info through basic web searches.
Any information would be appreciated.
Blackberry Bold 9000. 4.6 OS. tested with both SD card and no SD card.
Objects stored in the PersistentStore are automatically deleted on uninstall if their interfaces were defined in your project. If they are from the standard BlackBerry API then they will stick around until they're deleted. E.G if you save a String in the PersistentStore it will stay in the PersistentStore but if you save a class you created it will be deleted on an uninstall. So if you want to have those objects be deleted automatically just create a wrapper class and save that.
Images stored on the filesystem will not be deleted until you or some application deletes them. However, it should be easy for you to write an app that clears everything out.
Another solution you could implement is making your app somewhat self-aware of its data.
Create a simple String value that you persist (or optionally, persist it in a Hashtable so you can store many properties this way) that includes "Version".
At startup of the GUI app, compare the stored "Version" against the application's current version. If the stored version doesn't exist, or if it exists and matches, take no action.
If it exists and does not match, automatically clean up old persisted data; or alternatively prompt the user to see if they want that data to be deleted (which one is better will depend on your implementation)
You can also use CodeModuleListener to listen for an uninstall event -- when that happens, you can clean up at that time as well or instead.
(As an aside and a bit of shameless self promotion, I am actually currently working on a shareable library for Blackberry that makes managing persistence much easier, as well as desktop data backup/restore. I'm doing this as part of the BBSSH project, but I'll be splitting it off into a separate library of core components and publishing it under a dual GPL/optional commercial license. It will contain hooks for data cleanup and data versioning. )
I've got an Access 2007 database that I developed which connects to SQL Server for the actual data storage. I used the Package Solution Wizard to create a distributable installer which included access runtime (with an ACCDE file) which I went around and installed on 15 or so PCs. Anyway, my question is, what is the best way to distribute updates to this database? Right now I'd need to go around and remove and reinstall. That's not a problem... I was just wondering if there was another way.
I've tried leaving the front end on a network share but it seems that most people suggest storing the front-end on the local machine, which makes sense. The problems I've run into when I leave it on a network share (at least with Access 2003 mdbs) is that I find myself needing to compact and repair often and I also have to kill the open sessions (user's who have the file open) when upgrading. I would imagine it could also hypothetically create an unnecessary bottleneck if the user was not on the local network.
Automating front-end distribution is trivial. It's a problem that has been solved repeatedly. Tony Toews's http://autofeupdater.com is one such solution that is extremely easy to implement and completely transparent to the end user.
We developed a vbscript 'launcher' for our access apps. That is what is linked to on the start menu of user's pcs and it does the following.
It checks a version.txt file located on a network share to see whether it contains different text to a locally stored copy
If the text is different it copies the access mdb and the new version.txt to the user's hard drive.
Finally it runs the mdb in access
In order to distribute an update to the user's pc all that is required is to change the text in version.txt on the network share.
Perhaps you can implement something similar to this
Make a batch file on the server (network drive).
Create a shortcut link to that batch file.
Copy the shortcut to User's Desktop.
When user double-clicks on shortcut, it will copy a fresh copy from network to local.
Replace old database.adp on the server drive when you update a new version.
Each user gets a copy of database.adp on their machine.
Remove Security warning when opening file from network share is here.
Batch File
#ECHO OFF
REM copy from network drive to local
xcopy "Your_Network_Drive\database.adp" "C:\User\database.adp" /Y /R /F
REM call your database file - Access 2007
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\MSAccess.EXE" "C:\User\database.adp"
This is a very old post and I used the autofeupdater until it stopped working so I wrote one of my own and it has evolved over the last few years into something that I have used with many clients. It's so simple to use and there is no interface. Just an EXE and a very simple config file.
Please check it out here. I can also help with custom solutions if none of the configurations work for your needs. http://www.dafran.ca/MS-Access-Front-End-Loader.aspx
After trying all of the solutions above (not exactly these solutions but these are the common suggestions in the Access community), I developed a system entirely within Access using VBA that allows an admin DB to create and publish objects to client DBs without the need for user intervention or management of multiple DB files.
This approach has several benefits:
1. It simplifies the development process by having a dedicated environment (admin DB) for development and testing totally separate from the client DBs.
2. It simplifies the update/distribution process by allowing a developer to push out updates in real time that client DBs can implement in the background, without involving users. Can also allow devs to roll back to previous versions if desired.
3. It could be used as a kind of change management system within Access for developers who want to commit multiple changes to objects and modules and retain past changes.
4. It allows for easier user access control by allowing an admin to easily assign certain objects to specific users/roles without needing to maintain multiple versions of the DB.
I will hopefully post the code to GitHub soon, I just have to get clearance from my workplace to release it. I will edit this post to include the link when I have.
We have usually kept the Access front ends on network drives, and just put up with the need to compact and repair on a regular basis. You will probably find you need to do that even when they are installed locally, anyway.
If you must have it installed locally, there are various tools which will enable you to "push out" software updates, and the guys over on ServerFault would have more information on those. Assuming such tools aren't available, the only other option I can think of is to write a small loader program that checks the local .MDB against a master copy on the server, and re-copies it across if they are different, before then launching the MDB.
I'm working on creating a self updating application and one issue I'm running into on Vista and Windows 7 is needing to have admin privileges in order to update the client. I've run into issues with clients that have their users running under restricted permissions and they would have to have IT log onto every machine that needed to update the client since the users were not able to.
A possible work around I'm considering is to have the launcher application installed into Program Files as normal, and having the real application that it updates installed in the users documents somewhere, so that they could update and run new versions without IT becoming involved.
I'm wondering what potential gotchas I'm missing here or what I should be aware of before heading down this path. I'm aware that click-once does something very similar, and I'd be using it, except I need the ability to do silent updates, without any user interaction.
This is how it is supposed to be. The last thing most IT departments want is a user randomly updating a piece of software. This could have all sorts of unintentional side effects such as incompatibility with the older version's files, new and possibly insecure functionality, etc. This is why IT departments disable Windows Update and do their updates manually in a controlled fashion.
If the users want an updated version of the software they should be requesting it from their IT department. Those computers and infrastructure don't belong to them, they're simply borrowing time on them from the company they work for so they can do their job.
Is there an issue with having only one installation of your program? Is it particularly large, for example?
Do you require admin privileges to run your program?
If not, odds are you don't need the Program Files folder.
I suggest you forgo installing to Program Files entirely and just install your program into the user's folder system at <userfolder>\AppData\ProgramName.
If you happen to be using .NET, look into the ClickOnce deployment mechanism. It's got a great self-updating feature that'd probably make your life a lot easier.
Edit: Just saw your last sentence. ClickOnce can force the user to update.
A couple of things:
If you decide to move your app to some place in documents, make sure that your application writes data transparently to where your program is installed, e.g. if there are hard coded paths anywhere in the code that are pointing to bad places. Perhaps this is not an issue for you, but might be something to keep in mind.
We solved this in pretty much the same way when we decided to implement a "live update" feature. But instead we installed a service which is running with administrator rights. This service in turn can run installers once the program needs to be updated. With this type of solution you don't even have to move your applicaton out of program files.
Cheers !
Edit:
Another neat thing with having a service running as administrator. Is that you could create a named pipe communication with it and have it do things for you, like you wouldn't be able to do as a normal user.
A loader stub is a good way to go. The only gotcha is when you have to update the loader; the same initial problem applies (though that should be pretty infrequent).
One problem that I can think of off the top of my head is that you're stepping outside the entire idea of keeping things more "secure." Since your executable exists in a location that should be completely accessible to a non-administrator, it's possible that something else could slam your exe thus subverting security.
You can probably leverage AppLocker. It may only be for Win7 though I'm not running Vista any more. ;)