[AccessD] Deployment Woes

>> Using a file name suffix means that it is not necessary to actually open
the file to check the version and it might have been more efficient to
simply do the same for checking the existing FE <<

Jürgen, I followed your advice somewhat.  Currently I am thinking of NOT
deleting the old FE if/when I do an update.  My thinking is that with a
single record change, I could instantly revert back to a previous version
if, God forbid, the new FE crapped out.  My question is this...how would you
mitigate the version rollover problem?

Group, any comments regarding the approach I've used?  No comments included,
but hopefully the naming convention suffices as an explanation of what is
going on.
(see code below...watch for line wrap)


Mark

*** BEGIN CODE ***
   Select Case fFolderExists(constInstallPath)
      Case True
         Select Case fFileExists(strCheckFileName)
            Case True
               If fShellExecute(strAction, strFileName, constInstallPath)
Then
                  'Application.Quit
               End If
            Case False
               If fToggleFolderAttributes(constInstallPath) Then
                  If fCopyFile(strSource, constInstallPath) Then
                     MsgBox "Installation complete.", _
                           vbInformation, "Database Installation"
                     If fShellExecute(strAction, strFileName,
constInstallPath) Then
                        'Application.Quit
                     End If
                  End If
               End If
         End Select
      Case False
         If fCreateFolder(constInstallPath) Then
            If fToggleFolderAttributes(constInstallPath) Then
               If fCopyFile(strSource, constInstallPath) Then
                  MsgBox "Installation complete.", _
                        vbInformation, "Database Installation"
                  If fShellExecute(strAction, strFileName, constInstallPath)
Then
                     'Application.Quit
                  End If
               End If
            End If
         End If
   End Select
*** END CODE ***

-----Original Message-----
From: Jürgen Welz [mailto:jwelz at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 12:29 PM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: RE: [AccessD] Deployment Woes


In the bad old days my former employer had serious security restrictions 
that prevented running any number of different kinds of files including 
batch files.  No user could create a shortcut so I had to make to with the 
one that was given to all users.  Unfortunately I needed the shortcut to run

each users own FE version of the file, especially as they moved to Terminal 
Server and I had Word automation issues with multiple users running the same

FE.  My solution was to convert the mde file that the shortcut pointed at to

a file that determined the logged in user, used that information in the file

path to that user's unique FE, check a custom database property named 
"UserVersion" which was a number from 0 to 9, compare that property with the

master FE filename (which had a single digit suffix in the name).  If the 
property matched the suffix, it launched the FE, otherwise it copied over 
the new version and launched it.

Deployment required a few simple steps:

1.  Make changes to a development file;
2.  Update the version property of that file;
3.  Set the file suffix;
4.  Copy the file to the deployment location;
5.  Delete the previous file.

This approach only copies new versions when they are available.  Using a 
file name suffix means that it is not necessary to actually open the file to

check the version and it might have been more efficient to simply do the 
same for checking the existing FE rather than opening a database object to 
check the UserVersion property I created.

I have used schemes based on checking the file creation date with an API 
call for the date but found that simply changing a version number from 0 to 
9 and back to 0 kept it very simple.  You can simply start the version 
number from 0 as the test is for version match and not highest version 
number.  Now that I look at it years later, the only reason for using a user

version property rather than a file name was because the users might change 
the file name extension manually and because users commonly copied the FE to

laptops and this obviated the need to change the name of the coped file.  
Simply checking for a filename is significantly faster than opening a 
database and checking a version property and some day I may just change it 
to do that only.

BTW, the system automatically creates the folders if they don't exist and 
copies over a file if it didn't exist as well.  New users are autmatically 
accomodated.


Ciao
Jürgen Welz
Edmonton, Alberta
jwelz at hotmail.com