Four questions about DUA

[Guest]

I have four questions about the Device Update Agent.

1. Can i set it to poll for updates on media that is not there all the time

What i mean is that we may want to put updates on a USB key which appears as
drive D: to the system. But of course if we unplug the key the drive
disappears. Will this cause problems? I don't want the DUA to slow my
system down because it's trying to access a drive that is not there and
timing out.

2. What if i don't want to contiually poll for updates but install updates
using an option in my program.

I like the idea of generating a script that the DUA runs to perform the
updates esecially as this is a complied script so no-one can change it prior
to installing updates. BUT i'd like to be able to start off an update from
within my application. I guess that if i have a blank polling schedule and
select "Run on Satrt" then start the service from within my application that
would do what i want.

3. Can i stop an application thats already running from a DUA script.

Our application runs all the time but occassionally we may need to update
the executable so we'de need to stop it. The DUA script reference lists
commands for executing a program but not for stopping them. Can i move my
application to a different filename and replace it whilst it's still running
then re-boot to get the new application to run? One of the example scripts
in the help system does this to update a system file.

4. about rebooting during update.

From my breif loom at DUA scripting i can make the system re-boot during an
update. After the re-boot does the update script complete before anything
else starts. for example we Autologon a user and startup our application.
would the update script complete before the autologon and our application
starting or would we have to disable our application whilst the update script
completes.

If there is another way of handling updates (both windows system and our
application) please let me know.

 

[Sean Liming \(eMVP\)]

DUA is the lowest common demonitor update available for XPe. I have seen a
few developers create their own custom solutions.

1. I don't know what would happen. You might get something in the errror
log. You might want to set a location for DUA that is there all the time,
and create a program that copies the update from the USB disk to the update
folder localy.

2. You can enable/disable the DUA service within your application. The Poll
interval should be set to poll every few minutes.

3. The DUA script could launch a VBScript that turns off the application.

4. Do not know what happens after a reboot call.


Regards,

Sean Liming
www.sjjmicro.com / www.seanliming.com
XP Embedded Book Author - XP Embedded Advanced, XP Embedded Supplemental
Toolkit

 

[richard]

I have four questions about the Device Update Agent.

1. Can i set it to poll for updates on media that is not there all the
time

What i mean is that we may want to put updates on a USB key which appears
as
drive D: to the system. But of course if we unplug the key the drive
disappears. Will this cause problems? I don't want the DUA to slow my
system down because it's trying to access a drive that is not there and
timing out.

Yes, I have done it with USB Pen Drives for 2 years and no problems.
The drives are only present during an upgrade.

2. What if i don't want to contiually poll for updates but install
updates
using an option in my program.

I like the idea of generating a script that the DUA runs to perform the
updates esecially as this is a complied script so no-one can change it
prior
to installing updates. BUT i'd like to be able to start off an update
from
within my application. I guess that if i have a blank polling schedule
and
select "Run on Satrt" then start the service from within my application
that
would do what i want.

I actually did away with DUA, well, it's still there, but I wrote a TCP
Server Service that resides on my devices. Then people can plug in with a
laptop and run the client over a TCP Connection. The client sends commands
to the server to shutdown programs, start programs, commit EWF, reboot, and
other various things. Works real cool.

3. Can i stop an application thats already running from a DUA script.

Our application runs all the time but occassionally we may need to update
the executable so we'de need to stop it. The DUA script reference lists
commands for executing a program but not for stopping them. Can i move my
application to a different filename and replace it whilst it's still
running
then re-boot to get the new application to run? One of the example
scripts
in the help system does this to update a system file.

I ended up using PSKILL in the beginning, then ended up writing a small
utility that closes the program by it's windows caption name. Kill Notepad
30 Will shutdown Notepad in 30 seconds. I think you can do it with a VB
Script as well.

4. about rebooting during update.

From my breif loom at DUA scripting i can make the system re-boot during
an
update. After the re-boot does the update script complete before anything
else starts. for example we Autologon a user and startup our application.
would the update script complete before the autologon and our application
starting or would we have to disable our application whilst the update
script
completes.

If there is another way of handling updates (both windows system and our
application) please let me know.

Dunno, you would know the logic there. My Shell waits until everything in
windows is done before it launches my application. I would have to look,
but it's some like WaitForNoPendingEvents or close to that. A search will
find it here.
I do not know if that helps you in your case.

Richard