Hi

Just wondering if you anyone else in the community does live updates of a DF19.x exe while it is running?
And if so, have you had any issues ?


Here's how we do it (Using the ORDER.exe as an example though its too small):


  1. While ORDER.exe is running on the server
  2. Login as ADMIN, rename ORDER.exe to ORDER_OLD.exe
  3. Copy in the new ORDER.exe in its place.


Pros:
  • Zero disruption. Users have no idea this has happened and will continue using ORDER_OLD.exe until they eventually restart the application.
  • Bug fixes can be deployed immediately, rather than a schedule maintenance or overnight.


Issues lately:
  • We found, though we can't confirm, is that at times the 'OLD' program behaves erratically like it's executing code from the 'NEW' exe rather than itself.
  • To counter this effect, we have put in a "IdleTimer" of sort to check for the existence of a new exe version and to prompt the user to restart the app, but this doesn't always work.


Questions:
  1. Has anyone else encountered this ? Is there a workaround ?
  2. How do you do updates ?


Some notes:
  • The application runs as a RemoteApp on either Server 2012 or 2019, we are, slowly, upgrading all servers to 2019.
  • This is an old 'trick' that we have been used previously on older servers.



Thanks.