JP2000305757A - Automatic install system for client software and program therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce the install work of software from a server machine to a client terminal, to prevent an already existing file on the client terminal from being unnecessarily overwritten, and to automatically restore the file of the client terminal even when one part of the file is deleted. SOLUTION: In a client/server type information system in which a server machine 100 and a client terminal 200 are connected through a network 150, whether or not a file at the client terminal side is correctly present is judged by a file 120 for checking the existence of a file, and the version of a file at the server machine side is compared with the version of the file at the client terminal side, and when the version of the file at the client terminal side is older, or when any file at the client terminal side is not present, a file whose version is the newest is down-loaded from the server machine 100 to the client terminal 200.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a software for automatically installing client software from a server machine to a client machine in a client-server type information system including a server machine and a client terminal connected via a network. It is related to a wear management method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional client / server information system, application software and the like are installed on a floppy (registered trademark) disk or CD.
-All work was done manually using ROM.
Here, all operations include copying a file, setting an icon, registering a DLL in a registry, and the like.

[0003]

The conventional installation work requires several hours for installation on one client terminal because of the manual work as described above.
Windows DLL used in common with other systems
In some cases, files were overwritten and other systems stopped working.

In a conventional client-server type information system, a part of a configuration file of a client terminal may be lost due to some accident, and it is necessary to manually reinstall the client terminal every time. was there. However, manual restoration required a great deal of time and effort.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and reduces the work of installing software from a server machine to a client terminal. The present invention provides an automatic installation system and a program for client software that automatically recovers a file without overwriting the file and even when a part of the file in the client terminal is lost.

[0006]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an automatic installation system for client software. In a client / server type information system in which a server machine and a client terminal are connected via a network, When installing software on the client terminal, check for the existence of a file for which overwriting is prohibited because it is shared with other applications, etc., and if the file exists, do not overwrite the file on the client terminal It is characterized by the following.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an automatic installation system for client software, in which an installation MAP recording information for installation from a server machine to a client terminal is prepared.
The file is downloaded to the client terminal if there is an overwrite command for each target file described in (1), and the file is downloaded only if the file does not exist in the client terminal if there is an overwrite prohibition command.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an automatic installation program for client software, which is a program for installing software from a server machine to a client terminal, in which overwriting prohibition is designated because the application is shared with another application. It is characterized in that the existence of the file being checked is confirmed, and if the file exists, it is not overwritten on the file of the client terminal.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an automatic installation system for client software. In a client-server type information system in which a server machine and a client terminal are connected via a network, a file on the client terminal side exists correctly. File existence checking means for determining whether the file version of the client machine is older than the file version of the client terminal, and means for comparing the file version of the server machine with the file version of the client terminal. If the file does not exist, the latest version of the file is downloaded from the server machine to the client terminal.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an automatic client software installation system, comprising: a file for checking existence of a file on a client terminal side; information for installing each file from a server machine to a client terminal; Equipped with a version management file that records the version information of each file, determines whether the file on the client terminal exists correctly using the file existence check file, and downloads the latest version of the file from the server machine to the client terminal using the version management file It is characterized by doing.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an automatic client software installation system, wherein each file described in the file existence check file and each file described in the version management file are one-to-one or many-to-one. It is characterized by being linked so that

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, there is provided an automatic installation program for client software, which is a program for installing software from a server machine to a client terminal, wherein a file existence check for determining whether a file on the client terminal side exists correctly. Function and a function to compare the file version on the server machine side with the file version on the client terminal side.If the file version on the client terminal side is old or the file on the client terminal side does not exist, the server It is characterized in that the latest version of the file is downloaded from the machine to the client terminal.

[0013]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiment 1 (Outline of Embodiment 1) When an automatic installation program for client software according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention is started, an installation MAP file recording an installation procedure is downloaded from a server to a client, and this installation MAP is downloaded.
Automatically installs client software based on the contents described in the file. At this time, the file that already exists on the client side is overwritten only when the overwrite prohibition flag of the installation MAP file is off.

(Configuration of First Embodiment) FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an automatic client software installation system according to a first embodiment of the present invention. In the client-server type information system of FIG. 1, a plurality of client terminals (hereinafter, referred to as clients) 200 are connected to a server machine (hereinafter, referred to as a server) 100 via a communication line 150 such as FTP and RSC. I have.

The server 100 according to the first embodiment includes a client application latest file group 102 prepared for downloading to the client 200,
An installation M storing information used when downloading the latest file from the file group 102
AP file (hereinafter referred to as installation MAP) 10
One.

The client 200 includes an installation program 201 for automatically installing a client application file. The client 200 includes a file group 202 storing client application software and a file existence check file 203.

FIGS. 3A and 3B are diagrams showing a configuration example of the installation MAP 101. FIG. 3A shows a layout example of the installation MAP, and FIG. 3B shows a description example of the installation MAP. In this example, the installation MAP specifies the file name (1
2 bytes), 0 is always overwriting or downloading is possible, 1 is overwriting flag (1 byte) indicating that overwriting is not performed if the file exists in the client,
0 indicates a non-compressed file, 1 indicates a compression flag (1 byte) indicating a compressed file, a download destination (MAX128 bytes; variable length) of a client application file, and a file name on the server side (MAX128 bytes;
Variable length).

(Operation of First Embodiment) Next, the automatic installation processing of the client software according to the first embodiment will be described with reference to the configuration diagram of FIG. 1 and the flowchart of FIG.

(1) First, the installation program 201 of the client 200 is started (S1).

(2) When the installation program 201 starts, the installation MAP 101 on the server 100
Is downloaded to the client 200 side (S
2).

(3-a) Installation program 201
Determines whether the overwrite flag is 0 or 1 by checking the overwrite flag of each file of the downloaded installation MAP 101 (S3). If the overwrite flag is 0, it is determined that “the file may be always overwritten or downloaded”, and the latest file is downloaded from the client application latest file group 102 of the server 100 to the client 200 for the specified file ( S7). At this time, if the directory does not exist on the client 200 side, it is created. The files to be downloaded in (3-a) are those that do not affect other systems, such as application programs.

(3-b) If the overwrite flag is 1 in S3, the flow advances to S4 to determine whether or not the file exists in the client 200. If the file exists in the client 200 in S4, it is determined in S5 that the file is not overwritten, and the file is output to the file existence check list 203 without overwriting the file on the client 200. If the file does not exist in the client 200 in S4,
Proceeding to S6, the latest file is downloaded to the client 200 from the client application latest file 102 of the server 100. At this time, if the directory does not exist, it is created. In this (3-b), Win
Files that are shared with other application programs, such as the DLL of dows95, are targeted.

(4) Next, in step S8, setting of each definition file (eg, registration of DLL in a registry) and creation of a startup icon are performed.

(5) When all the operations are completed, the user is notified of the completion of the installation by a message (S9).

(Effects of First Embodiment) As described above, according to the first embodiment, the following effects can be obtained. That is,
In the installation work so far, Windows95
In some cases, a file shared with another application, such as a DLL file, has been inadvertently replaced, so that other application software does not operate. Therefore, when the client program is automatically installed, the file already existing on the client side is overwritten only when the overwrite prohibition flag of the installation MAP file is off, so that the file which is shared with another application can be used. By checking in advance, careless overwriting of a shared file or the like can be prevented.

Embodiment 2 FIG. (Outline of Embodiment 2) An automatic installation system for client software according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention comprises:
For example, when the user clicks on the application software icon, the automatic installation program starts, and checks the versions of the server and client application files. At the same time, the file for file existence check is downloaded from the server, and it is checked whether the file on the client exists correctly based on the content. If the file version on the client is old or missing on the client, download the latest version of the file from the server to recover the lost file on the client and keep the version up to date .

(Configuration of Second Embodiment) FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an automatic client software installation system according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

In the server 100 according to the second embodiment, a server-side version management file 110 that stores the version of each file of the latest client application file group 102 to be downloaded to the client 200
And a file existence check file 120 prepared to check whether the client application file 202 or the version management program file on the client 200 exists correctly.

The client 200 has Windows
The version control file 110 on the server is compared with the version control file 220 on the client. If the version of the file on the client is old, the file is downloaded from the server and the file 120 To check the existence of a file on the client, and if the file has been deleted, a version control program 210 for downloading and restoring the latest file on the server.

FIGS. 6A and 6B are diagrams showing examples of the configuration of the version management files 110 and 220 on the server side or the client side. FIG. 6A shows a layout example of the version management file, and FIG. 6B shows a description example of the version management file. is there. The version management file in this example is a file name (12 bytes) stored in the server or client, a version character string (12 bytes) of the file, 0 is an uncompressed file, 1 is a compression flag (1 Byte), download destination of client application file (MAX 128 bytes; variable length), file name on server side (MAX 128 bytes;
Variable length).

FIG. 7 shows a file 1 for file existence check.
20A and 20B are diagrams illustrating a configuration example of the check file, wherein FIG. 20A is a layout example of the check file, and FIG. 20B is a description example of the check file. The file for file existence check in this example is an index (the head is 0) which is an offset value from the head of the server-side version control file 110.
00) and a file name on the client side depending on the file specified by the index (MAX 128 bytes;
Variable length).

(Operation of Second Embodiment) Next, the automatic installation process of the client program according to the second embodiment will be described with reference to the configuration diagram of FIG. 4 and the flowchart of FIG.

(1) When the user starts the application software (S20), the version management program 210 starts up (S21).

(2) When the version management program 210 is started, first, the server 100
0, the “file existence check file 120” is downloaded (S22).

(3) The version management program 210 sequentially obtains the file names described in the file existence check file 120, and checks whether or not they actually exist on the client 200 (S2).
3). Then, the result is stored in the file existence check array.

(4) Next, the server-side version management file 110 is downloaded from the server 100 to the client 200 (S24).

(5) File names and versions are read in order from the server-side version management file 110 downloaded in (4) and the version management file 220 on the client, and the versions of each file are compared (S25).

(5-a) In S26, it is determined whether the version of the file on the client side and the version of the file on the server side are new or old. If the version of the file on the client side is older than the version of the file on the server side, the process proceeds to S28. Download the latest file from the server 100.

(5-b) If the version of the file on the client side is newer than or the same as the version on the server side, the process proceeds to S27, where the file existence check array generated in (3) is read and depends on the file name. Check that all the client files to be executed exist correctly. If none exists, the latest file is downloaded from the server. The above operations (5-a) and (5-b) are performed for all files (S29).

(6) After the version management program ends, the application software is started (S3).
0).

Here, the client-side file existence check of (3) is performed based on the file existence check file 120 of FIG. For example, in the case of the upper example of FIG.

C: \ EMS \ KD1 \ OSS \ OSS_
DEQL. EXE C: \ EMS \ KD1 \ OSS \ OSS_DEQL. D
AT

Each file has index = 0.
00, that is, the version control file 110 shown in FIG.
Compressed file OSS_DEQL. It is included in LZH. Therefore, if one of the two files does not exist, the server 100
0 to OSS_DEQL. Download the LZH file and recover the file that did not exist on the client.

In the second embodiment, the file existence check file 120 is used for the following reasons. As in the example above, the version control file 110
Describes only the compressed file name, and the actual file on the client may be included in the compressed file. In this case, the version control file 11
If the file existence is to be checked using only 0, the compressed file is once checked by the server 1 for checking.
It is necessary to download from 00. This is a serious problem in view of the processing time and the load on the communication line. Thus, the file existence check file 12
If 0 is used, the existence check can be performed by downloading only a small-capacity file, and as a result, only a compressed file containing a file that did not exist on the client side can be downloaded from the server to the client. Can be.

According to the second embodiment, the following effects can be obtained. That is, until now, the version control file on the server (which stores the version of each file) and the version control file on the client were compared, and if the client version was older,
They had downloaded those files from the server.
This conventional method has a problem that "it cannot be recovered if some files of the client have been deleted due to an accident."

Therefore, in this embodiment, in addition to the version check, the existence check of the file on the client is performed, and when the file is deleted, the latest file on the server is downloaded regardless of the old or new version. As a result, the file on the client can be always updated to the latest version, and even if a part of the file on the client is erased due to an accident, there is an effect of being able to cope.

[0047]

As described above, according to the present invention, the work of installing software on a client terminal can be greatly reduced.

In particular, according to the first and third aspects of the present invention, when software is installed from a server machine to a client terminal, overwriting prohibition is specified because the software is shared with another application. The file on the client terminal is not overwritten if the file exists, preventing accidental overwriting of existing shared files on the client terminal, and preventing accidents in other systems. Operation is not affected.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, an installation MAP recording an overwrite inhibition flag and installation information
By installing this, when installing from the server machine to the client terminal, this installation MAP
, Automatic installation can be easily performed.

According to the present invention, in addition to the version check of the file on the server machine side and the file on the client terminal side, the existence check of the file on the client is performed and the file is deleted. Downloads and restores the latest file on the server regardless of the version, so that the file on the client can always be updated to the latest version, There is an effect that can cope even when some of the files are deleted.

In particular, according to the invention of claim 6, each file described in the file existence check file and each file described in the version management file are one to one.
By linking one-to-one or many-to-one, even if a plurality of compressed files exist in the version control file, the existence check can be performed using the file existence check file. As a result, the client side Only compressed files containing files that did not exist in the server can be downloaded from the server to the client.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an automatic installation system of client software according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing automatic client software installation processing according to the first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of an installation MAP used in the first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram showing an automatic client software installation system according to a second embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing automatic client software installation processing according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a version management file used in Embodiment 2 of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a file for file existence check used in Embodiment 2 of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a relation between a version management file and a file for checking file existence used in the second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

100 server machine, 101 installation MAP,
102 Client application latest file group, 110 Server side version control file, 120
File existence check file, 150 network, 200 client terminals, 201 installation program, 202 client application files, 203 file existence check file,
210 Version control program, 220 Client side version control file.

Claims (7)

[Claims] In a client-server type information system in which a server machine and a client terminal are connected via a network, when installing software from the server machine to the client terminal, the software is shared with another application. An automatic installation system for client software, which checks the existence of a file for which overwrite prohibition is specified for such a reason, and does not overwrite the file of the client terminal if the file exists. 2. An installation MAP which records information when installing from a server machine to a client terminal.
If there is an overwrite command for each target file described in this installation MAP, download the file to the client terminal. If there is an overwrite inhibit command, download the file only when the file does not exist in the client terminal. 2. The automatic installation system for client software according to claim 1, wherein: 3. A program for installing software from a server machine to a client terminal, and confirming the existence of a file for which overwriting is prohibited, for example, because the file is shared with another application. An automatic installation program for client software, which does not overwrite the file on the client terminal if it exists. 4. In a client-server type information system in which a server machine and a client terminal are connected via a network, file existence check means for determining whether a file on the client terminal exists correctly, and a server machine side Means to compare the version of the file on the client device with the version of the file on the client device.
Alternatively, if there is no file on the client terminal side, an automatic installation system for client software characterized in that the latest version of the file is downloaded from the server machine to the client terminal. 5. A file for checking existence of a file on a client terminal side, a file for checking existence of a file, information for installing each file from a server machine to a client terminal, and a version management file for recording version information of each file. 5. The client according to claim 4, wherein the file for checking the file existence is used to determine whether the file on the client terminal side exists correctly, and the latest version of the file is downloaded from the server machine to the client terminal using the version management file. Automatic software installation system. 6. Each file described in the file existence check file and each file described in the version management file are linked so as to be one-to-one or many-to-one. An automatic installation system for client software according to claim 5. 7. A program for installing software from a server machine to a client terminal, a file existence check function for determining whether a file on the client terminal exists correctly, a version of the file on the server machine and the client terminal Has a function to compare with the version of the file on the client side.
Alternatively, if there is no file on the client terminal side, an automatic installation program for client software, which downloads the latest version of the file from the server machine to the client terminal.