Web Update Wizard Project Manager

The Web Update Wizard Project Manager helps you prepare, test and upload your software updates and update scripts.

(Tip: Let your mouse hover over controls in the dialog image below for help on each control.  The actual application also has popup 'tool tips' for each control when you let your mouse hover over them.)

Activities you can do with this utility:-

Quickly view/edit your update script, the WebUpdateSvc4.ini file and the Web Update Wizard log file

When you are preparing and testing your update script, you will want to quickly view / edit the script, check the state of the WebUpdateSvc4.ini file to see the counter values, or the WebUpdateSvc4.log file to check the log file for errors.

The group panel labelled 'Local Paths:' lets you specify the paths of these files and then quickly open them for viewing / editing by clicking the 'Open' buttons.

Note that for editing your script files we have prepared syntax files for two popular text editors, Textpad (shareware) and PSPad (freeware).  Tip: PSPad uses IDE-type code completion / boilerplates more effectively for the Web Update Wizard, as shown in this screen capture:

Tip: If you enter the filenames of the script file, WebUpdateSvc4.ini and WebUpdateSvc4.log in the edit fields on the dialog then the files will open using the default Windows file associated application when you click the adjacent 'Open' button.  If you want to open the file using a different editor, the edit fields also accept full command lines containing application and document path, as shown in the following example:

Start and stop the Web Update Wizard Service

The 'Service status' checkbox shows whether the Web Update Wizard service is running. You can uncheck the box to stop the service and check the box to start it.

Note that you probably need Administrator rights to start/stop a Windows service. If you do not have sufficient rights the checkbox will always be unchecked, even if the service is actually running.

Test Your script

To help you test your update script, you can use the controls in the group panel labelled 'URL of update script'.  When you click the 'Test!' button the Web Update Wizard Project Manager does the following, simulating what will happen when the Web Update Wizard is launched from your application:

  1. Calls the WebUpdate() or WebUpdateWait() exported functions of wuw4.dll (depending on the radio button setting next to the 'Test It' button), passing through the URL from the 'URL of update script' edit field as the script URL.
  2. Wuw4.dll opens a named pipe and sends the script URL to the Web Update Wizard service using this pipe.   
  3. WebUpdateSvc4.exe working either as a service or a Windows executable then attempts to download the update script from the target web server.  If any of the following conditions apply, nothing further will happen:

  4. If an update is required then it is processed by the Web Update Wizard as normal.  Note that unless a TargetFolder= keyword is specified, the default folder for the downloaded updates is the folder of the application that launched the Web Update Wizard call through wuw4.dll.  Or in this case, the folder that the Web Update Wizard Project Manager is running from.  You can open this folder by clicking the 'Explore Project Manager folder' button on the dialog.

Tip: You may wish to use the Testmode keyword in your script block while testing scripts in order to save having to edit the WebUpdateSvc4.ini counter value each time you want to retest.  (Just remember to remove the Testmode keyword if applicable, before you go live!)

Upload the script file / update file(s) to your web server via FTP

Once you have authored and tested your script file you can use the group panel labelled 'Remote settings' to FTP the files to your web server.  You can add as many items to the 'Local files for upload:' list box.  They will be uploaded sequentially when you click the 'Upload' button.

Load and Save Projects

The 'Load' and 'Save' buttons let you save the settings from the Project Manager dialog controls to file.  (The file format of Web Update Wizard Project files is XML.)