From: "David K. Trudgett" <dkt@...>

>
> My take on it is that the added administration of copying updated
> executables is not worth the few milliseconds saved in program load
> time, or the slight increase in LAN traffic (unless your users start
> their apps several times a second, perhaps... ;-)). One disadvantage
> of centrally storing executables is that some servers (Netware, for
> example) don't allow you to update a file while someone has it open.
> In the case of Netware, this seems to be for the entire duration
> between launching the application and closing it. If you use a
> sensible server O/S, like Linux, that problem shouldn't exist.
>

I always build an auto update feature into my programs. When you install the
software on a workstation from the network, it remembers the install
directory and checks it for an update everytime the application is started.
It's seamless to the client and provides an end run around the updating each
individual workstation every time. It does require an initial small loader
program to check and copy the new file before it executes the main program,
though. Not a big deal to me since the loader program is fairly generic and
can be used with any program.

Woody