Automatically checking for a new version of my application

Question

Trying to honor a feature request from our customers, I\'d like that my application, when Internet is available, check on our website if a new version is available.

The

Answer 1

I would agree with @Martin and @Pilif's answer, but add;

Consider allowing your end-users to decide if they want to actually install the update there and then, or delay the installation of the update until they've finished using the program.

I don't know the purpose/function of your app but many applications are launched when the user needs to do something specific there and then - nothing more annoying than launching an app and then being told it's found a new version, and you having to wait for it to download, shut down the app and relaunch itself. If your program has other resources that might be updated (reference files, databases etc) the problem gets worse.

We had an EPOS system running in about 400 shops, and initially we thought it would be great to have the program spot updates and download them (using a file containing a version number very similar to the suggestions you have above)... great idea. Until all of the shops started up their systems at around the same time (8:45-8:50am), and our server was hit serving a 20+Mb download to 400 remote servers, which would then update the local software and cause a restart. Chaos - with nobody able to trade for about 10 minutes.

Needless to say that this caused us to subsequently turn off the 'check for updates' feature and redesign it to allow the shops to 'delay' the update until later in the day. :-)

EDIT: And if anyone from ADOBE is reading - for god's sake why does the damn acrobat reader insist on trying to download updates and crap when I just want to fire-it-up to read a document? Isn't it slow enough at starting, and bloated enough, as it is, without wasting a further 20-30 seconds of my life looking for updates every time I want to read a PDF?
DONT THEY USE THEIR OWN SOFTWARE??!!! :-)