How is Update Manager supposed to work?

[jtnprogram]

Can anyone verify if the following is true? I cannot seem to find detailed documentation on Update Service's website on Update Manager. If you do know where detailed docs on Update Service are, could you provide a link?

If a product is enabled to check weekly with Update Manager, the following occurs:

When that week is up and it is time for Update Manager to check for updates (don't know how it decides when to check) a little balloon pops up in above my system tray saying Update Service needs to check for updates. Additionally a little Update Service icon appears in my system tray.

Then if a user clicks on that balloon or the icon, the Update Manager screen pops up.

Then on the Update Manager screen, the user has to click on check for updates now. Then the Update Manager displays whether or not it found any updates.

If the user doesn't click on the balloon or icon, then the icon stays in the system tray. And it seems like the balloon appears every so often, but I'm not sure how often.

[Brad_Peterson]

You've figured out a lot more on this than I did. I found the online pages describing Update Service to be very plain and not informative, so I just gave up and downloaded a free trial and went from there. I learned much more about it that way.

You were correct about the Update Manager approach to it, where InstallShield has a background program running and checking for updates every X days. The only part you had wrong was a small detail "Then on the Update Manager screen, the user has to click on check for updates now. Then the Update Manager displays whether or not it found any updates."

Not quite, it will already have the update listed, the user doesn't have to check for updates, because it already found them previously.

Now, thats the Update Manager approach, which I believe is the cost-free approach. I believe it falls under the Update Service Starter Edition, or something like that

There is a pay version of Update Service, where if you needed, you can ignore and not use Update Manager, but instead write code into your program to check and download for updates. The code is pretty flexible, and allows for many different ways to let you program pull this off. This also makes it much easier from the users point of view.

[jtnprogram]

Thanks so much for the insight Brad. However, what is throwing off my users is that if I don't have an update availabe, they do seem to get a 'show updates' button. Then they take the time to click the button, and it says no updates are available. They don't want to see the screen if no updates are available. Seeing the update manager with no updates available seems to contradict what Update Service's product documentation says.

Installshield, why do they see the screen if no updates are available. Could a future enhancement be to only show the update manager if there is an update available? Also, is there any better documentation on this?

Brad Peterson wrote:

You were correct about the Update Manager approach to it, where InstallShield has a background program running and checking for updates every X days. The only part you had wrong was a small detail "Then on the Update Manager screen, the user has to click on check for updates now. Then the Update Manager displays whether or not it found any updates."

Not quite, it will already have the update listed, the user doesn't have to check for updates, because it already found them previously.

[Brad_Peterson]

The best way to let the people involved with Update Service know about your problem and proposed solution is to mention it here:

http://www.installshield.com/feedback/default.asp?category=prod&first_sub_cat=27&Company=&serialnumber=&firstname=&lastname=&version=isus()

[kshannon]

I have noticed the same issue.
I have Update Manager set to check daily for updates, most of the applications we distribute to our users are 3rd party so I cannot invoke checking in the application itself. Relying on Update Manager was our only option for update notification.
Each day a ballon pops up stating the Update Manager must check for updates. This is different from the ballon that pops up stating "There are program Updates available".
Since we are new with Update Manager, no updates have been set to active yet, we currently have 2 in test mode.
Each device we set to receive an update in test mode, then run the update on, never gets this pop up again. Each device still set in active mode and that has never received it's first update using Update Manager, gets a pop up box every day stating "Update Manager needs to check for updates". As we have not gone live yet, I'm currious if anyone else has noticed if this particular notification finally goes away ones the user has taken it's first update.

[Ritesh]

kshannon wrote:

Each day a ballon pops up stating the Update Manager must check for updates. This is different from the ballon that pops up stating "There are program Updates available".
Since we are new with Update Manager, no updates have been set to active yet, we currently have 2 in test mode.

Unfortunately, this is an issue with Update Manager. Even though you check for updates and none are available, it thinks that you have not check for updates at all. If there are updates available, it should not display that message.

I have created a work order for this...1-1CDBT5.