Simplified installation updating In an effort to simplify the updating process and eliminate the chances for incomplete installations, we’ve developed a new strategy that includes the recently released “Comet.Exe” program and a change in how Comet looks for other required system files. Here are the steps in the Comet.Exe startup process: To take advantage of Comet.Exe, users on a network should all have access (read-only is acceptable) to the Comet system files on the file server. A shortcut on each user’s desktop should point to Comet.Exe on the server. The “Start in” folder should point to a folder that contains the profile configuration file (.CFG) for the node (depending on the installation, this could be the same as the program folder). When Comet.Exe is executed it first verifies that all files needed for an installation are present. Comet.Exe then compares file times and sizes to determine if the file on the user’s machine needs to be updated. If a file has been deemed “update required”, Comet.Exe copies the file onto the user’s own system, putting it into the “Temp” folder designated for their system. If Comet.Exe discovers that Cosw.Exe is in use on the user’s system, it skips all remaining checks and passes execution immediately to the local version of Cosw.Exe. So you see, an update to a user’s system can only occur if Comet or CometAnywhere are NOT already running. Once Comet.Exe has copied all of the required files it executes the local version of Cosw.Exe, passing to it all pertinent parameters to start your new Comet session. The ability to update a Comet installation while users are still running comes as a side benefit of installing Comet.Exe on a network server. Because all users are essentially running their own “private” copy of the Comet system programs, an installer can install new versions of the system programs onto the server at any time, making them all available to each user the next time they run Comet.Exe. When Comet starts, it now looks in the program folder (the folder from which Comet.Exe or Cosw.Exe was loaded) for all of the remaining system files EXCEPT the user supplied profile configuration file (.CFG) which Comet expects to find in the “Start in” folder. Note: The “Start in” folder does not need to be a “Comet” folder (one that contains a QDIR) and can be located in any folder accessible by the user. This simplified approach solves the previous problem that could occur when an installation required that some of the system files (CoshIpc, .Cfg, and .Ddl) be copied to different folders so that users could startup differently by simply changing their “Start in” folder to the appropriate folder. With such a scheme, when it was time to update the system files, the .Zip file containing the new files would be unzipped into the “base folder” only, leaving the installer with an incomplete installation and error messages explaining how “this file or this dll or this module couldn’t be found or loaded.” This problem has now been solved.