Patches

[Xero]

Here's one for ya- how do you go about making a "patch" for a program made in VB? Ya know, patches are those things ya run and they changes alter a few things, fix a few bugs. See, I could release a whole new version of my program, but if I could just make a patch it would be easier and a smaller download. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Generally if it's just a change to the logic, release the exe to your customers, if you have added more controls/third party ocxs then you will have to include these.

Hope it helps.

[Asaf_99]

Yeah, that would be kickass!

How do you make pathches???
We need you Megatron!

[Xero]

Repost... get it to top of list kinda thing...

[overhill]

I have always wanted the ability to issue patches instead of the full .exe. From what I understand, it takes a software program that analyses the original and final .exe byte by byte and creates a patch.

The closest that I have come with my programs is this. I include a separate update program along with my program. This update program connects to a specified web site and downloads a .zip file with the new program file and anything else in it. The update program then extracts all of these files and the new program file is up to date. The program files zip down to about 50% of their original size.

You can get information on using .zip files from:

ftp://ftp.freesoftware.com/pub/infozip/info-zip.html

[Edneeis]

Although I don't understand it all. You can make patches with Visual Studio Installer/Windows Installer.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ps...updat_24yt.htm

Or check in the VS Installer SDK.

Its just A LOT easier to use an installer program to do it.

Would rather just send out the exe, but can see reasons for sending partial exes. However, this sounds (considering we are talking microsoft here), tricky and likely to be bug prone.