Usenet Explorer Automatic Updater

jonib · Post by **jonib** » Fri May 23, 2008 2:16 am

Two years ago inspired by this thread I made an automatic updater for UE.

So this is version 0.53 UE Automatic Updater

Basically you would run my updater instead of ue.exe, and it would check if there is an update available and prompt to download and install it, and then start UE, and if there is no updates it would just start UE, which means if there is no updates there is no difference from starting UE directly.

Updated: I have updated it to ver 0.53: changes look at this post and the readme file, and below

Code: Select all

0.53 : 2010-05-21
       Updated to use Usenet Explorers new download url.

0.52 : 2009-09-15
       Updated to use Usenet Explorers new installer name (32bit for now).

0.51 : 2008-11-09
       Updated to use Usenet Explorers new installer. 

0.50 : 2008-10-31
       Basically the same version as 0.40 but better support for Vista and non
       beta so it downloads directly from UEs website.
       Now if you have UAC active in Vista you should not get a "Unknown program"
       warning anymore. 

0.40 : 2008-10-25
       I consider this a beta as I have added a lot of stuff so there is higher
       risk for bugs, also the Updater won't check or download updates directly
       from UEs website. 
       I have made the program selfinstalling, including an option to add a
       shortcut on the desktop. 
       Now it doesn't unnecessarily download and install a new UE if you already
       have the latest version.
       Now it will ask if you want to use an alternative database in UE. 
       Choosing not to install an update, won't show prompt next start. 
       Added more error checking and optimized the code some more.

The program is made with AutoHotkey, the source code and more information is availably here.

jonib

jaapf · Post by **jaapf** » Mon May 26, 2008 8:08 pm

Is there a autoupdater for the autoupdater?

jonib · Post by **jonib** » Mon May 26, 2008 8:18 pm

jaapf wrote:Is there a autoupdater for the autoupdater?

Very good question, and the next version will be able to autoupdate itself, I didn't have a permanent web place for the program before so I didn't put it in before.

Thanks for showing interest.

jonib

jaapf · Post by **jaapf** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:35 pm

Jonib,

What I would like is that the autoupdater resolves the executabel name from the .ini file.

Why? Well, I kept the last 1.xx version in reserve to step back if neccesary, and renamed the "working" version to UE2x.exe.

In running the updater should compare to that one, rather than just UE.exe and (ideally) even rename the updated file to UE2x.exe after extraction.

On the other hand, I could just rename the 1.xx version instead...

jonib · Post by **jonib** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:54 pm

jaapf wrote:Jonib,

What I would like is that the autoupdater resolves the executabel name from the .ini file.

Why? Well, I kept the last 1.xx version in reserve to step back if neccesary, and renamed the "working" version to UE2x.exe.

In running the updater should compare to that one, rather than just UE.exe and (ideally) even rename the updated file to UE2x.exe after extraction.

On the other hand, I could just rename the 1.xx version instead...

My Updater runs UeExtractor.exe which does the extracting, so to be able to change the extracted filename, it needs to be extracted somewhere else, and then renamed and moved to the right place.
So I believe changing the name of the 1.xx version should be easier.

jonib

jonib · Post by **jonib** » Fri May 30, 2008 8:32 am

I have updated my automatic updater to ver 0.20, biggest change is that my program can update itself automatically.

jonib

jonib · Post by **jonib** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:01 pm

Josef K wrote:I have a few copies of UE around: Usually one on a NAS that I can use from any computer, a local copy for quick downloads when the NAS is switched off and one on my girlfriend's account. Can you make your updater work with more than one copy, i.e. update all installed copies?

If you have my updater in every place you have a ue.exe and run my updater instead of UE directly, they all will be updated whenever you run UE, but not all at the same time.

jonib

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:13 pm

Logic: 1
Josef K: 0

jonib · Post by **jonib** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:37 pm

Josef K, If you try it, I would be very interested in any comments you have about the program.

jonib

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:40 pm

Hmm... Slight issue:

The copy I have on the NAS runs from a shortcut that points explicitly to the database on the NAS. If I run UE without specifying a db or import an NZB, it will open the local copy, along with the local db. The updater updated the NAS copy no matter where UEAutoUpdater.exe was located. This is because it's the last copy of UE.exe that I updated and UE remembers the extract path. If you could pass the current path to the extractor, then all would be fine.

Another point to mention is that once UE is updated, it is just started. For example, running the updater on the NAS copy will eventually run UE but with the local db. If the shortcut could be specified to run after the update or the database path then it could solve the problem.

jonib · Post by **jonib** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:49 pm

Josef K wrote:Hmm... Slight issue:

The copy I have on the NAS runs from a shortcut that points explicitly to the database on the NAS. If I run UE without specifying a db or import an NZB, it will open the local copy, along with the local db. The updater updated the NAS copy no matter where UEAutoUpdater.exe was located. This is because it's the last copy of UE.exe that I updated and UE remembers the extract path. If you could pass the current path to the extractor, then all would be fine.

Another point to mention is that once UE is updated, it is just started. For example, running the updater on the NAS copy will eventually run UE but with the local db. If the shortcut could be specified to run after the update or the database path then it could solve the problem.

I hadn't thought of UEs ability to specify a path to the DB, but its no problem I'll put up a new version that supports parameters.

jonib

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:55 pm

Okie cokie. As ever, I'll test it when I can. Not sure if I'll have much more time tonight, though so tomorrow at the earliest.

jonib · Post by **jonib** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:59 pm

I have updated the UE updater to version 0.30.

Now it supports "Running multiple instances of UE" so if you put a path to another database after the updaters exe file, it will run UE with that database.

And the other change is that if you run UE.exe from different paths the updater will point to the right UE.exe and not the last one updated.

Hopefully there is no bugs added

Go to the first post to download.

jonib

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:02 pm

I finally had time to check this out properly. I tried it as soon as I saw this but it needed further investigation which I didn't have time for.

Running it today (copy on D:), it ran through as it should. When it ran UE.exe, the previous version (2.2.1) was loaded. There was a new file in that directory, called just 'exe'. I figured out that UAAutoUpdater was passing the pathname as 'D:\Apps\Usenet ExplorerUE.exe' rather than 'D:\Apps\Usenet Explorer\UE.exe', so it needs to include the extra backslash.

When I run it again, UAAutoUpdater does not detect that it is still the previous version and so just runs UE. Deleting the .ini or changing the .ini file version will correct this.

Running the updater on the NAS copy (S:\Usenet Explorer\UE.exe), there was no full pathname passed to it. Where the local copy on D: had the pathname 'D:\Apps\Usenet ExplorerUE.exe' (minus the backslash), the NAS copy on S: had only 'UE.exe' in the filename box. This allowed the update to happen as expected. On a second run, it passed the path, minus the last backslash so it would have happened as it did with the copy on D:.

UEAUReadme.txt wrote:0.25 : 2008-10-20
Now you can send a parameter to UE to open a specific database.

Upon running UE on the NAS, the local database was still loaded. I'm not sure where the database path is to be entered.

jonib · Post by **jonib** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:22 pm

Josef K wrote:When I run it again, UAAutoUpdater does not detect that it is still the previous version and so just runs UE. Deleting the .ini or changing the .ini file version will correct this.

At the moment the updater don't check UE.EXE version, so changing the version in the .ini file is the way to make it update.

Running it today (copy on D:), it ran through as it should. When it ran UE.exe, the previous version (2.2.1) was loaded. There was a new file in that directory, called just 'exe'. I figured out that UAAutoUpdater was passing the pathname as 'D:\Apps\Usenet ExplorerUE.exe' rather than 'D:\Apps\Usenet Explorer\UE.exe', so it needs to include the extra backslash.

This seems weird, the updater runs the ue.exe that is in the same directory as the updater, it does not use an absolute path only "ue.exe".

Upon running UE on the NAS, the local database was still loaded. I'm not sure where the database path is to be entered.

You should put the same thing after the UEAutoUpdater.exe as you wold ue.exe as in "UEAutoUpdater.exe PathtoDB"

jonib