NRecord won't start (2.6.2, Windows 7)

[johnsonx42]

I extract sub's original zips and create the patch zips using 7-zip, and the date and time are definitely preserved on my end. I just can't vouch for what the end-user does with them on their end. Isn't it great when Windows and IE "help" us this way?

[mvallevand]

I am talking about the AutoIt change from another user you used last time.

Martin

[johnsonx42]

oh that.

When I installed it on my system to test it, it preserved the dates and times as well. I wonder though if there might be conditions where it wouldn't preserve them?

[jpsa]

Ah, problem understood

This might be a case where people are using the built-in Windows compressed folder functions to unzip the latest patch archive, and they are failing to "Unblock" the file first. When you do this, all the files get extracted with the current date and time, rather than the date and time when they were compiled.

That exactly describes what I did. The patched files had a time of when I installed the patch, rather than the time they were compiled -- 16th March rather than 3rd March -- and the date on the 2.6.2 version of NShared.dll (8th March) is between the two.

I can also confirm that unblocking the zip file before uncompressing it stops this behaviour. Should I have known to do that? I can't see that instruction on the "Current Patches and Getting Started info" thread.

I have had dabblings with Windows Installer in a past job, and I think we concluded then that the only completely reliable mechanism to avoid this kind of problem was to increment the assembly version number with each build. Developer Studio provided a mechanism to do that (put a '*' in the version number, and it'll replace it with a timestamp at build time. This, however, can cause difficulties if you need to load an assembly by full name (including version number) at runtime.

Doing a 'force write' might end up downgrading files inadvertently, and touching the files before building the installer still doesn't help with someone who installs patches for a previous version after the latest version has been built, then tries to update to that latest version.

All rather unsatisfactory, really

[johnsonx42]

I do admit I do not have anything in the patch thread about unblocking the file. I did at one time, when there was a specific issue with NDigitalHost.exe being blocked and unable to run. Since I almost never use the built-in .zip handling functions for actually extracting files, preciously because of problems like this, I didn't think about the time-stamp issue until it reared it's head now.

Next time there's a patch update available I'll take one of two options: add more instructions to cover the unblocking, or just post it in .7z format instead and provide a link to 7-zip. (which would be slightly amusing since in the very next post I have my little diatribe against posting logs in anything but .zip format)