AutoHotkey Community

[ribbs2521]

I have a program that about 100 people use, the problem I encounter is this: When I need to update the file I have to ask everyone to close the program so I can delete the old and put in the new file. Is there any way I can forcefully disconnect people from the program?

Some employees that use it are on other shifts and they leave it open on their locked computer. The program is on a network so what I have been doing is disconnecting the network cable which, in turn, disconnects them from my program. So, I just want to know if there is an alternative where I can control it from my PC.

[Elesar]

Well, not sure about doing networked controlled stuff, but I wrote a script that would perform a version check against a file on one of my old servers upon startup.

If the file version matched, the program continued, if not, it asked if the user wished to update.

Upon selecting yes, the program would connect and download two more items. The first is a patcher and the second would be the new version of the script.

The program would then launch the patcher. The patcher would close out the program and delete it, then rename the new program and launch it before closing itself.

Upon the updated program launching, it would version check, and if correct, delete the patcher.

You could setup something like this using a time comparison to periodically check for a new version every 24 hours or so, then have the program show a popup with a timer. If the timer expired, the program would connect to your server and update itself.

My server is no longer in operation, but here is the source for the three components of the system I described.

Main program:

[Slanter]

You can control/disconnect people from files on your computer via Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> System Tools -> Shared Folders -> Sessions
(To get to Computer Management you can also run %SystemRoot%\system32\compmgmt.msc /s)

Here's a script I wrote a while ago that would alert me when anyone was looking at files on my computer using that window.

[ribbs2521]

Well, unfortunately, when I meant server I meant it's on a drive on a server not a shared folder from my computer on the server. That is some interesting information though, I was not aware you could monitor who is accessing your shared files.

I, however, think I will be going with the idea of having the installer and updater. Rather than having users run the program from the server I will put an installer on the server and they can run the program from their computers. I already have a version checker so all I would have to do is add in the updater.

Thanks for everyone's assistance, this will definately pay off.

[david.kingham]

I had the same problem, so I created this to close my program if they leave it open. This may or may not work for you. You just have to run it from your main program, I have this in my main program: Run \\nevada\drawings\revit\RevitTimer.exe
Which is this...

[JohnF]

There is a way to do this, I done it and my problem was the same.
For me the install option does not work since my app is runing on a Citrix so I need to kill the app for the users.

I did a easy app kill funktion in my script, it looks for a file every 2sec, if it does not exist it will self terminate. A simpel rename of the file will do it.

[randallf]

Without reading the whole thread: I would just have it run a check every 15 minutes for the existence of a file on a UNC share, if found it returns ExitApp. Have it check on startup too (or it closes the app, to keep them from just opening it again).

Upload the check file, wait 15 minutes (or however long) and upload the new program.

Edit:

You could make it so that if the file is found, it returns RELOAD instead, that way they have the new version. Could also put a timer in, will exit in... etc...

[[VxE]]

Here's how I would approach the "non-synchronous script update" problem. Each new 'version' of the script should be saved with its version number appended to its filename. Then, in the same folder, use a launcher script to run the newest (automatically detected, of course) version. Don't worry about removing the old versions at all... in fact, it may be a good idea to keep them around in case there's something wrong with the new version.

just my ¢2.
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[JohnF]

There is many ways to approach this, I use the version check in some of my other scrips.
in this specific case I'm restricted to a specific file name because it's on a citrix cluster witch I'm not the king over, so I can't use the version check.

This is just a another way to force the app to shoutdown so I can do the update.

[engunneer]

my not so elegant, but tested solution to this problem:

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18417
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