Forums Bug Reports Check for Updates

In the latest beta, Check for Updates has been updated to perform a direct install:


Several notes regarding this feature:

1) To test this feature, use the command:

/updatebeta <on|off>

If enabled, the next time there is an automatic check for updates, or if you click "Check for Updates" in the About dialog, mIRC will think there is a new version available and will download the beta installer from the website. The beta installer is versioned 7.76.9999 and installs the same files as v7.76. These will replace your current files, including your beta version of mIRC. You can find the backed up files in the "backups" folder.

2) The downloaded installer can be found in the "updates" folder. This beta installer will not do anything if run directly.

3) Since some users rename their mirc.exe files, the updater uses the name of the executable that initiated the update, ie. if you renamed mirc.exe to mirc9.exe, the updater will update mirc9.exe.

4) If you can, please test this with both a portable install and non-portable install. In both cases, the installer should use the existing setup as expected.

5) An easy way to test this is to create a new, empty folder, place the beta mirc.exe in there with an mirc.ini that has portable=yes enabled, and follow the above steps. The beta installer only updates files in the folder where mirc.exe is located.

Please remember to backup your files before testing this feature. I have tested it here and it seems to be working correctly.

Please post any bug reports for this feature in this thread, and/or confirmations that you tested it and it is working as expected for you.

That sounds like a great improvement.

I do have to ask, just because I believe it is incredibly important. Does mIRC verify that the signature of the downloaded executable is valid and from mIRC Co.Ltd.? Thank you.

Yeah, that sounds like a great feature! The number of times I got the update notification, went to the homepage to download it, and then...left it sitting in the download folder because I did something else is greater than zero for me.

I do like that I can just install the new version while mIRC is running and be up2date next time I run it (pretty much next day for me; I'm not one of those maniacs that keeps their system running 24/7.)
Hope the updater has the same feature and doesn't force me to restart mIRC or anything once it is done.

That is on my to-do list. Note that mIRC would be downloading the same install file that is available on the download page, ie. the file that everyone currently manually downloads to update mIRC.

The updater would need to exit mIRC, perform the update, and then restart mIRC.

May I propose a "Update on close" option then? I usually have mIRC open all day, connected to many servers; and only close it when I shut down/go to bed for the day.

Wouldn't it be better to put an On/Off option in the mIRC options?

I'm afraid not, this updater will work in the same way as most other major applications, eg. Firefox, Opera, Chrome, etc. When you choose to install the update, it will download the update, install it, and restart the application, so that the user is now running the latest version with security fixes, bug fixes, and other updates.

No, this is a beta option for beta-testers. If you want to test the beta updater, you will need to follow the instructions in my above post.

I activated the option through the /updatebeta on command and when I opened the mIRC About dialog and checked for new updates, this dialog appeared. It's normal?

Yes, that is the standard Update dialog that is displayed when a new version is available. This is the same dialog that you currently see in existing versions of mIRC if you have Check for Updates enabled. The beta installer is versioned 7.76.9999 and installs the same files as v7.76.

What if we use version numbers in the filename? Could it be possible to match the new version version number?

I append version numbers for releases and betas. "mirc-7.76.exe" / "mirc-7.76.2477.exe".

The reason that the updater uses the name of the executable is that changing the name could break the user's existing setup, eg. shortcuts, scripts, etc. that depend on that executable's name. There is no easy way to know what would or would not be broken, so the updater just uses the name of the executable that initiated the update.

I had not thought about the filename in shortcuts, scripts, etc.. No idea how I managed to forget about that.