JP2007066132A - Program system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve a problem that update of software will not be performed unless rebooting is not carried out even in an information processor which is desired to avoid rebooting. <P>SOLUTION: An installer 2 includes; a process to copy a module of installation object software 3 to a specified directory; a process 21 to perform copy of a file from a directory specified after rebooting; a version information acquisition process 24 which performs processing to acquire version information of a module of a specified directory. The installation object software 3 includes; a version information acquisition process 32 which performs a process to acquire version information of the module; a load process 33 which performs a process to load a module which exists in a specified directory; and a function call process 34 which performs a process to call a function from a loaded module. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a program system, an installation program that causes a computer to perform processing for installing software in an information processing apparatus, and installation target software that is installed by processing by the installation program and causes a computer to perform required processing. Relates to a program system comprising:

  2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, for example, a version upgrade method has been widely used as a method for adding or updating functions of a printer driver installed on an information processing apparatus side in order to control an image forming apparatus. This version upgrade adds a new module to the printer driver module, re-installs the printer driver, and restarts the information processing device to expand the printer driver functions. Becomes effective.

Regarding such program updates, there are those described in Patent Documents 1 to 9, for example.
JP 2004-206229 A JP 2004-017470 A JP 2004-062397 A JP 2004-062398 A JP 2003-131879 A JP 2003-308215 A JP 2004-206660 A Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-287764 JP 2004-326601 A

  That is, in Patent Document 1, when a personal computer (PC) is caused to function as a control unit for controlling a printer, connection destination information for designating a printer to be controlled is acquired. It is determined whether the printer connected to the connection destination specified by the control means conforms to the control by the control means. If it is determined that the printer does not conform, the printer is not controlled. If a device that matches the installation target program and can be controlled from the PC is searched before installation, and if it is recognized that there is no target device for installation, it is installed. It is described to stop.

  In Patent Document 2, an image forming apparatus that executes an image forming process in response to an input image forming process request, a peripheral device that is connected to the image forming apparatus and operates by executing an installed control program, When an image forming process request using a peripheral device whose version has been upgraded is input, the request is rejected, and when the other request is input, an image corresponding to the request is received. An image forming method for executing the forming process is described.

  In Patent Documents 3 and 4, when installing a printer driver in an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer, the name of a module set to be installed is changed according to a certain rule at the time of installation. It is described that a driver module set can be installed with a model-specific name, and undesired system restarts can be minimized.

  Patent Document 5 discloses an installation system that is used in connection with a computer system and suppresses rebooting, in which a device of the installation system loads the installation system into a temporary directory; A system is described that includes a directory mechanism that sets a path to a temporary directory and an execution mechanism that executes the installation system from the temporary directory.

  Patent Document 6 discloses a method for controlling an information processing apparatus in which a device driver can be installed, an installation process for installing a device driver, and a restart of a control program in the information processing apparatus when the device driver is installed in the installation process. And a display control step for performing control to display a display screen for prompting restart when it is determined that restart is necessary in the determination step. A control method for reducing unnecessary restarts while starting is described.

  In Patent Document 7, when a predetermined type of device is connected, a computer that executes a predetermined automatic startup script or an automatic startup program stored in the device is attached to and detached from a general-purpose peripheral device interface, A removable device including a ROM or a readable / writable storage device as a main storage device, wherein the control means includes a plurality of unit devices including a first unit device and a second unit device, and a computer side. When the data is transferred to and from the hub means for allocating data to each unit device and the general-purpose peripheral device interface, first, a signal simulating a predetermined type of device for the first unit device is first sent to the computer, and then Means for sending a predetermined signal for receiving recognition of the second unit device to the computer at the timing of Has described a was.

  In Patent Document 8, a PC detects a deletion request that requests deletion of a printer driver, and if the printer driver that is the target of the deletion request is set as a normally used printer driver, the PC is the target of the deletion request. It is described that control is performed to prompt the user to set a printer driver different from the printer driver as a normally used printer driver.

  In Patent Document 9, the function information existing in the search target range described in the search target information list in the search target information list UI control module operating on the host computer is acquired and written in the function information list. The written function information (a part of it) is displayed in the display field in the printer function setting screen, and instructions for adding, updating, and deleting functions corresponding to the displayed function information are accepted. It is described that functions can be added, updated, and deleted by using a plug-in module connected to the driver main body module by executing addition, update, and deletion.

  In the above-described conventional information processing apparatus and related programs, control methods, etc., the reason why the software to be updated is used by the information processing apparatus when performing update installation of the software to be used When the software module to be updated cannot be overwritten by using the installation program (hereinafter referred to as "installer"), the information processing device is restarted to update the software module after the restart. I am doing so.

  However, the usage environment of the information processing apparatus includes a usage environment in which it is desired to avoid restarting as much as possible, such as an information processing apparatus operating all day, such as a server application.

  However, even in the case of an information processing apparatus that wants to avoid restarting in this way, conventionally, there is a problem that software is not updated unless the information processing apparatus is restarted.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a program system capable of performing an updated process without restarting an information processing apparatus.

  In order to solve the above-described problems, a program system according to the present invention includes an installation program that causes a computer to perform a process for installing software in an information processing apparatus, and a program that is installed by the process of the installation program and that is required for the computer. A program system composed of installation target software that performs processing. The installation program copies a module of the installation target software to the specified directory, and the file from the specified directory after the information processing apparatus is restarted. A program that performs the process of copying files, the process of deleting files from the specified directory after restarting the information processing device, and the process of acquiring the module version information of the specified directory The installation target software acquires the module name from the specified directory, acquires the module version information, loads the module existing in the specified directory, and calls a function from the loaded module. It was set as the structure which is a program which performs a process.

  Here, when the installation target software is already installed in the information processing apparatus, the installation program acquires version information of the installation target software already installed, and the version of the installation target software to be installed is It is preferable to have the installation process performed if it is new.

  In addition, when the installation target software is used in the information processing apparatus and the update version module cannot be overwritten, the installation program copies the update version module to the storage area of the specified information processing apparatus, It is preferable to perform an overwrite copy from the storage area to the installation target module after the apparatus is restarted, and to perform a process of deleting the updated version module stored in the storage area after the module is copied.

  In this case, the installation program includes a user interface display process for displaying an installation status and an error message. When copying to the storage area fails, a process for displaying a message prompting the execution of the installation program again after the restart is performed. It is preferable.

  In addition, when there is a module having the same name as the module constituting the installation target software copied by the installation program in the storage area in the information processing apparatus specified by the installation program, the installation target software displays the version information of the same name module. Preferably, the module having the same name existing in the storage area is loaded when the module with the same name existing in the storage area is newer than the version of the module constituting the installation target software.

  In this case, when the installation target software loads a module having the same name as the module constituting the installation target software in the storage area specified by the installation program, the installation target software includes the update version module existing in the storage area. It is preferable to perform a process of calling a function so that the updated process can be executed.

  According to the data transfer device of the present invention, since the above configuration is adopted, when the installer performs software update installation, the software module cannot be overwritten and the information processing device needs to be restarted. Even in such a case, it is possible to execute the updated process without restarting by loading the updated version module existing in the storage area and calling the function in the updated version module. Thus, it is possible to suppress restart at the time of software update installation.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the functional configuration of the program system according to the present invention on the information processing apparatus.
This program system includes an installation program (hereinafter referred to as “installer”) 2 that causes a computer to perform processing for installing software in the information processing apparatus 1, and processing required for the computer that is installed by processing by the installer 2. It is comprised with the installation object software 3 to perform.

  The installer 2 is automatically started from a storage medium such as an installation CD-ROM in which the installation target software 3 is recorded, or is started by being executed by the user from the information processing apparatus 1.

  Then, the installer 2 performs a module copy process 21 for performing a process of copying a module of the installation target software 3 to a designated directory and a process of copying a file from the designated directory after the information processing apparatus 1 is restarted. A user interface display process 22 for performing a process of displaying an installation status and an error message on the display 11, a module deletion process 23 for performing a process of deleting a file from a directory designated after the information processing apparatus 1 is restarted, The program includes a version information acquisition process 24 that performs a process of acquiring the version information of the module in the specified directory.

  The installation target software 3 is a program that includes a restart suppression processing unit 30 and a software execution processing unit 35 that executes the software.

  The restart suppression processing unit 30 has the same name module search process 31 that performs the process of acquiring the module name of the same name from the specified directory, the version information acquisition process 32 that performs the process of acquiring the version information of the module, and the specified The program includes a load process 33 for performing a process for loading a module existing in the directory, and a function call process 34 for performing a process for calling a function from the loaded module.

The function of this program system will be described with reference to FIGS.
First, the installer 2 displays the process transition state of the installer on the display 11 of the information processing apparatus 1 using the user interface display process 22.

  Further, the installer 2 uses the module version information acquisition process 24 to acquire the versions of the modules constituting the installation target software 3. At this time, if the version of the software 3 to be installed is lower than the version of the module to be installed by the installer 2, the update installation described below is performed, and if it is higher, the user interface display process 22 is used. Then, a message to end the installer 2 is displayed on the display 11, and the installation process is ended.

  In this way, when the installation target software has already been installed in the information processing apparatus, the version information of the installation target software that has already been installed is acquired, and the version of the software that the installer is trying to install is newer. In some cases, by using the installation process, when using the installer, it is possible to install a newer version of the software than the already installed software or the same version of the software. Will never be installed.

  Therefore, the processing in the case of performing update installation will be described with reference to FIG. 2. The installer 2 causes the module copy processing 21 to be performed at the time of software update installation, and the updated version module is stored in the storage area 12 to be installed. Overwrite copy of.

  At this time, if the installation target software 3 can be overwritten and the module copy of the installation target software 3 is normally completed, the installer 2 ends the process.

  On the other hand, when the module copy fails, the module copy process 21 copies the updated version module to the storage device 12. When the copying is normally completed, the module is overwritten on the storage area 12 in which the installation target software 3 is installed after the information processing apparatus 1 is restarted, and the module deletion processing 23 is performed after the copying is completed. At the same time, the update module is deleted from the storage area 12.

  In this way, the installer copies the software update module to a specific storage area of the information processing device, and after the reboot, overwrites the software module to the storage area where the software is already installed. After the restart, the updated software can be executed.

  Here, if the module copy to the storage device 12 fails, a message prompting the execution of the installer after the information processing device 1 is restarted is displayed on the display 11 by performing the user interface display processing 22. Let This can prompt the user to restart.

  On the other hand, the installation target software 3 is activated by being executed by a user or by being called from an operating system like software such as a device driver.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the modules constituting the installation target software 3 cause the module search process 31 with the same name to be performed, and the storage area 12 is referred to immediately after startup, and the modules of the same name configured by the installation target software 3 are referred to. Search for a module. If there is no module with the same name in the storage area 12, update installation is not performed, and the processing of the software execution processing unit 35 is executed.

  On the other hand, if a module with the same name exists, the module version information acquisition process 32 is used to acquire the version information of the module with the same name. If the version information of the module existing in the storage area 12 is older than the installation target software 3, the update installation is not performed, and the processing of the software execution processing unit 35 is executed.

  If the software is newer than the installation target software 3, it is assumed that the software is to be updated and installed, and a module load process 33 is performed to load the module of the same name existing in the storage area 12.

  At this time, if loading of the module with the same name fails, it is considered that the software cannot be updated, and the processing of the software execution processing unit 35 is executed.

  On the other hand, when the module with the same name has been successfully loaded, it is considered that the module for update installation has been copied to the storage device 12 by the installer 2, and the function call processing 34 in the loaded module is used to store the storage device 12. The function of the updated version is called from the module with the same name existing in, and the updated process is executed. In this case, the processing of the software execution processing unit 35 is regarded as older than the processing of the updated version module and is not executed.

  In this way, by confirming the version information of the module having the same name by the installation target software, it is possible to prevent erroneously loading a module having a version older than the installation target software. In addition, when the installation target software loads a module from the storage area, the information processing apparatus updates the processing updated from the already installed installation software by calling a function in the updated module. Can be run without rebooting.

It is a block diagram explaining the function structure on the information processing apparatus of the program system which concerns on this invention. It is a flowchart with which it uses for description of a process of an installer. It is a flowchart with which it uses for description to the process of installation object software.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Information processing apparatus 2 ... Installer 3 ... Installation object software 11 ... Display 12 ... Storage area 21 ... Module copy process 22 ... User interface display process 23 ... Module deletion process 24 ... Version information acquisition process 30 ... Restart suppression process part 31 ... Same name module search process 32 ... Version information acquisition process 33 ... Module load process 34 ... Function call process 35 ... Software process execution part

Claims (6)

A program system comprising an installation program that causes a computer to perform processing for installing software in an information processing apparatus, and software to be installed that is installed by processing by the installation program and causes the computer to perform required processing. There,
The installation program includes a process for copying a module of software to be installed to a specified directory, a user interface display process for displaying an installation status and an error message, and a process for copying a file from the specified directory after the information processing apparatus is restarted. , A program that performs a process of deleting a file from a specified directory after restarting the information processing apparatus, and a process of acquiring version information of a module in the specified directory,
The installation target software performs a process of acquiring a module name from a specified directory, a process of acquiring module version information, a process of loading a module existing in the specified directory, and a process of calling a function from the loaded module. A program system characterized by being a program to be executed.   2. The program system according to claim 1, wherein when the installation target software is already installed in the information processing apparatus, the installation program acquires version information of the installation target software already installed and tries to install it. A program system characterized in that installation processing is performed when the version of the installation target software is new.   2. The program system according to claim 1, wherein the installation program stores the software to be installed in the storage area of the identified information processing apparatus when the software to be installed is used in the information processing apparatus and the update version module cannot be overwritten. A process of copying an update module, performing an overwrite copy from the storage area to the installation target module after restarting the information processing apparatus, and deleting the update module stored in the storage area after copying the module A program system characterized by having   4. The program system according to claim 1, wherein the installation program includes a user interface display process for displaying an installation status and an error message. If copying to the storage area fails, the installation program is restarted after restarting. A program system for performing a process of displaying a message prompting execution of an installation program.   2. The program system according to claim 1, wherein the installation target software is a module having the same name as a module constituting the installation target software copied by the installation program to a storage area in the information processing apparatus specified by the installation program. Is present, the version information of the module with the same name is acquired, and the module with the same name in the storage area is loaded when the module with the same name in the storage area is newer than the version of the module constituting the software to be installed. A program system characterized by being made to perform. 6. The program system according to claim 5, wherein when the module having the same name as the module constituting the installation target software in the storage area specified by the installation program is loaded, the installation target software is stored in the storage area from the installation target software. A program system characterized in that a process for calling a function in an updated version module is executed, and the updated process can be executed.

Images