useless question: patching a file on disk (not replacing)

[Gerard Verhoef]

Sorry to bother you with a question about something I just like to know, I
don't have any real use for the answer, there's no real problem that has to
be solved.

Thanks for staying with me

In several MS flightsimulator forums people are arguing about how a
microsoft patch for the sim (flightsimulator 2004) behaves in relation to
the original main executable.
Some say that the patch only changes parts of the file on disk. That only
the changed parts of the fs9.exe file are copied to the harddisk and the
rest is kept as it is. Something like replacing a windshield in a car. I
find that hard to believe because filehandling on disk and filehandling in
RAM are entirely different subjects. The file handling part of the operating
system doesnot look into the file. It's easier to replace the entire file.
As opposed to the car/windshield example of course.

I guess everyone is talking windowsxp with ntfs, but in my line of arguing
the specific filesystem or o/s should not realy make a difference.

Thanks for your wisdom,

Gerard

 

[Mike Brannigan [MSFT]]

Sorry to bother you with a question about something I just like to know, I
don't have any real use for the answer, there's no real problem that has
to be solved.

Thanks for staying with me

In several MS flightsimulator forums people are arguing about how a
microsoft patch for the sim (flightsimulator 2004) behaves in relation to
the original main executable.
Some say that the patch only changes parts of the file on disk. That only
the changed parts of the fs9.exe file are copied to the harddisk and the
rest is kept as it is. Something like replacing a windshield in a car. I
find that hard to believe because filehandling on disk and filehandling in
RAM are entirely different subjects. The file handling part of the
operating system doesnot look into the file. It's easier to replace the
entire file. As opposed to the car/windshield example of course.

I guess everyone is talking windowsxp with ntfs, but in my line of arguing
the specific filesystem or o/s should not realy make a difference.

Thanks for your wisdom,

Gerard

I'm not sure what you question is, but we will and do use the process of
binary patching a file to reduce the size of the patch to be downloaded.
So we can ship a patch that when applied to the file replaces sections of
the file to produce a new version of that file on disk.


--

Regards,

Mike
--
Mike Brannigan [Microsoft]

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights

Please note I cannot respond to e-mailed questions, please use these
newsgroups

 

[Gerard Verhoef]

I'm not sure what you question is, but we will and do use the process of
binary patching a file to reduce the size of the patch to be downloaded.
So we can ship a patch that when applied to the file replaces sections of
the file to produce a new version of that file on disk.


--

Regards,

Mike
--
Mike Brannigan [Microsoft]

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights

Please note I cannot respond to e-mailed questions, please use these
newsgroups

Thanks Mike,

Sorry I wasn't more clear in asking, but your answer was nevertheless right
to the point.
It was exactly what I liked to know, even if it proved I was wrong.

Thanks again, I did learn something today!

Gerard

 

[SlowJet]

It depends on what is appling the patch.
Older OS / programs have hardware device access.

XP is XP is HAL, 1 bit changed gets rewritten thru the OS / NTFS.SYS driver,
throu the F/S i.e. A CLUSTER.

Weather or not the disk under intellect knows not to actually write a 0 when
is is a 0 or a 1 when is is a 1, is purely a disk technology factor and
doesn'r matter, but from a logical view, a cluster was rewritten.

SJ