This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Janek Schwarz. Original Post: How Do You Deliver Updates To Users? Feed Title: The Wannabe Java Rockstar Feed URL: http://weblog.janek.org/Archive/Categories/javablogs.rss.xml Feed Description: The Wannabe Java Rockstar: Janek's weblog where all posts go to Eleven Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Janek Schwarz Latest Posts From The Wannabe Java Rockstar

I need to deliver updates to my customers. Are there any best practices, techniques or tools available that help with this process?

We develop in Java; the applications are deployed using a traditional graphical installer. When we need to deliver bugfixes, we  use a simplistic approach:

The command compares two directories and adds every differing file to a zip file. Later, this file is wrapped in a self-extractor and sent to the customer. Of course, this works only if the new release doesn't contain any incompatibilities.

In the foreseeable future, we need to deliver more complex updates, possibly introducing changes in the data format.

So my questions are:

• How do you manage changes and incompatibilities?
• Do tools exist that support the process or automate it?
• After you've identified every change that needs to make it into the update, how do you deliver it?
• Besides Webstart, are there any Java-based solutions available for automatic updating?

Every hint is appreciated.