>>>>>Hi everybody,
>>>>>
>>>>>There are couple of internal VFP things, which lead me to some frustration and problems with new versions.
>>>>>
>>>>>First problem is: When application (.app) executes on user's machine, it automatically resides in memory, so there is no way to update this application, without kicking everybody out. I know about different "launcher" approaches, but we haven't implemented any of them so far, so this is still a real problem for me (and my colleagues) as developers.
>>>>
>>>>I believe the best approach is to use a launcher. This gives you two HUGE advantages: 1) Your problem above is solved. You don't have to kick everybody out. 2) Users can go back to previous versions of your executable. Very useful is the latest update has unexpected side-effects.
>>>>
>>>>Code available on request.
>>>>
>>>>HTH, Hilmar.
>>>
>>>What if application change also involves adding/changing some tables (and their structure)?
>>
>>I don't see a way to upgrade the structure while the users work - apart from using a database server, like Oracle, that supports that feature.
>>
>>Therefore, I do the update at midnight, with an automated procedure.
>>
>>>
>>>BTW, how about the second problem?
>>
>>What, exactly, is the problem if the database remains open?
>>
>>Hilmar.
>
>The file could not be archived or deleted...

I have a timer in several applications that require all users off for certain nightly operations. The timer checks for presence of certain text files in the data directory. If file, say, SHUTDOWN.TXT is there, it automatically cancels all edit operations (if any, as users are not supposed to do anything at that time, but somebody can just forget and leave the record open in Edit mode). Then the application is shut down no matter what state it is in. This may not be a trivial task, requiring some assumptions to be made, as you have to safely bypass the validation routines, close modal dialog windows, which might appear, etc. To implement such functionality into commercial framework requires deep study of its methods to ensure that you can do it safely.