Online Patching Systems?

Master_Flash asks: "My company is preparing to distribute an online Windows application that will change over time (don't they all?). We been evaluating online patch systems. There are a number of commercial applications out there. Some look good: RTPatch from PocketSoft, ASTA Binary Patcher, and Necromancer's FlashUpdate. Has anyone had a positive experience with these or other applications? One other idea we had was to use CVS as a patching system. While CVS isn't technically a binary patch it does a great job at checking on which files need to be updated. Most of the files we have are small and change infrequently, so CVS could work. Opinions and guidance are welcome."

Comments

Not CVS!

[moosesocks]

CVS is overly bandwidth and cpu-intensive both client-side and server side. I believe that there are various forks of it which are more efficent.

But, I digress. CVS was not designed for this. Rsync was designed almost percisely for something like this. It only transferres the parts of the file which have been modified, and compresses it as well.

But, why not simply use installshield or a similar tool like all other windows developers and just release periodic updates (which fits the model for windows software, which, IMO is quite diferent than the linux model (make many releases and many patches, while windows and MAC lean twoard making a few periodic releases, only patching where there is a severe flaw).

I'm not saying that one model is any better, i'm just saying that you need to keep consistancy.