Setup factory update service...

[nileshbahirshet]

As per I have asked some query in last thread ...
I want to make the setup and I want to launch on net so anybody can download from net and I want to also give facilty that the users who have install my application can get regular updates(If some files are added to my application ) of my application.
or
patches( If only .exe of my application changes) of my application.

I want to confirm that whether I have to buy
Setup Factory to create the setup and for reular update or patches I have to buy Visiual patch both ?
( whether Setup factory provides service realeted to patches and updatest ? )

[Ulrich]

It seems that you still haven't understood what each product does.

Setup Factory builds installers. These installers can be for full installs, or for upgrades, replacing the older files with full copies of the current version. It is up to you to define what you include in each installer.

Visual Patch allows you to build update packages, allowing you to replace old versions of files, installing additional files, remove unnecessary files, and of course to patch any binary files from the current version to the latest build. To be able to apply a patch, it is implict that you will have to have fully installed product first - in other words, without an installer like Setup Factory or an competetive product in the first place, Visual Patch won't be practical, because it wasn't designed to build or perform full installs - just updates in the most effective way.

TrueUpdate is a tool that you embed in your application to help your customers to check for newer versions of the installed product. For this, it provides tools to ease the work for determining the current version of the installed product, and takes away the the pain to write the code to download and install a file rom the net, so you don't have to worry about timeouts, protocols, ports, proxies, and so on. It allows you to download an updater or installer and run it with ease, but this file by itself will have to be made with Setup Factory, or with Visual Patch, or it can be just a zip file with all the new files that have to replace the current ones.

So, in my opinion, the two most important products are Setup Factory and TrueUpdate, which you should purchase. With those, you will be able to build new installs and check for updates. The updates can be delivered again by packages build with Setup Factory, or they can be simple zipped archives. If you need, however, a robust solution to deliver only small update packages to modify already deployed files, containing only the parts that changed from one version to the most recent, you should build the updates with Visual Patch.

Ulrich

[pww]

it really depends on your application(s) - how it is structured, what is mostly updated etc.

I have a simple (from install & update point of view) app and need only SF for it. I build 2 different installers for any new version of the app, one is full installer and the other is a small updater which upgrades an existing installation to the latest version.
If the updater is launched but there is no existing installation on the system (or if existing is too old), it gets the full installer from my server and launches it. You can also make a standalone updater that containes no files but checks the existing installation against a server-hosted list to see what has to be downloaded and installed.

SF has a very powerful scripting, and for non-complicated update scenarios it can do the job of VP & TU. For more complicated updates however, or if you need to update big files (in which case it's better to distribute a small binary patch with differences instead of replacing whole files), one of the other two products may be needed.