More intelligent updates

[abctech]

ABC6 version 6.223 (September 2009) introduces a more intelligent way of checking for updates. Each time ABC6 starts up it checks the hard drive (on the server if you are on a network) looking for new ABC programs. This used to take a few seconds -- but worse, a brief message appeared on screen telling you what was happening. This usually was too fast for you to read and so we got phone calls asking what this message all about and was there a problem?

From version 6.223 ABC6 will just make one quick check to see if it is the latest version, and then usually will skip the whole update process. Result -- faster startup and no flash of message on screen. And less phone calls for us.

And just to let you know -- the first time you use the new ABC6 you will still get the update process and message. But thereafter the new system will take effect.

[abctech]

One side effect of this new system is that we now have to give a new Version Number to every tiny little change we make to ABC6.
Previously if we spotted a spelling mistake in a tooltip somewhere (I know. Unlikely, but very occasionally it might happen) we might correct this and quickly upload the revised update file without changing the version number. This upset the "intelligent" updating system and meant the update did not actually run. (Ha, so the updating system isn't as clever as it thinks it is!).

The result for you is that there will now be a lot more new versions of ABC6, but don't worry. It doesn't mean we are all working overtime fixing bugs (if we know about any bugs they get fixed immediately so -- for example -- as I write this there are no known bugs in ABC) but just that every tiny adjustment or enhacement to a report or alteration to a screen message is now given a new version number.

At the rate we are going we expect to run out of numbers by the year 2074, so before that happens we will try and think of a better system.

[abctech]

A few people have reported that the auto-updates do not work for them. Our guess at present is that this is a permissions issue on their windows 7 computers, but we are not sure. So we have added an extra update option on the website (bottom of the paragraph describing the normal update). If you have a problem with the normal update, use the "alternative" update.