(Note: the following discussion assumes that your SSW installation is located in C:\ssw.)

It is important to update your SSW installation on a regular basis. To update SSW, run the daily.bat script provided in your C:\ssw\site\setup directory. You can run this manually anytime, and/or schedule it to run at predefined times.

During the creation of the SSW installation script, you had an opportunity to select "Enable daily upgrade task".  If you enabled that option, the C:\ssw\site\setup\Daily.bat script is scheduled to run automatically every night.  (By opening a DOS command window, and typing the word 'at', you can see that it is scheduled.)

Manually

If you didn't schedule automatic updates, or if you want to force an update manually, you can double click the Daily.bat file anytime.  Or - even more convenient - you can create a shortcut on your Desktop to the Daily.bat file and double click the desktop icon any time to update SSW. 

If you didn't set up automatic updates during the installation, but would like to start them later, you can do so either through the 'at' command or via the Task Scheduler.

Using the at Command

Open a DOS window and type something like:

at  03:50  /every:su,m,t,w,th,f,sa  C:\ssw\site\setup\daily.bat

(adjusting the time to your preference and the location of the daily.bat file to your machine's ssw location).  You can check what has been set with the 'at' command by simply typing at (the word 'at') in the DOS window.

Using Task Scheduler

The 'at' method may not be available on some newer systems. The more modern way to schedule tasks is to use the Windows Task Scheduler as follows:

Start via Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Task Scheduler or Control Panel / System and Security / Administrative Tools / Task Scheduler

Create Task button on right
In General Tab:
Name: SSW Update
Click Run whether user is logged on or not

In Triggers Tab:
Click New...
Click Daily
Enter the time of day to run every day (like 4:00 AM)

In Actions Tab:
Click New...
In Program/script field, type: C:\ssw\site\setup\daily.bat (or wherever your ssw is located)

Click OK.
Enter user name and password to run task under.

Next time you start the Task Scheduler, you will see the SSW Update task listed in the Task Scheduler Library.
To edit the SSW Update job, right click it in the Task Scheduler Library and click Properties

Seeing What's Happening during the Update

Normally, when the Daily.bat script runs it opens a DOS window that shows the initial update command, but nothing more.  This window will close after the update completes.  Normally a log file is created in your site/setup directory.  Look in the Daily.bat file to see or change the name of the log file.  You can examine this log file to see what happened during the update.

You can kill the update job any time by closing the DOS window.  Updates are cumulative, so the next update will pick up where this one stopped.

If you would like to see the text that gets sent to the log file in the DOS window (it will still also get sent to the log file), do the following:

1. Install the wtee.exe program in your site/setup directory from here.   Save the wtee.exe file in your site/setup directory.
2. Edit your Daily.bat script by changing the line that runs mirror and currently looks similar to:

   C:\perl\bin\perl.exe C:\ssw\gen\mirror\mirror.pl -d C:\ssw\site\setup\ssw_install.pkg > C:\ssw\site\setup\daily.log

   to look similar to this:

   C:\perl\bin\perl.exe C:\ssw\gen\mirror\mirror.pl -d C:\ssw\site\setup\ssw_install.pkg | C:\ssw\site\setup\wtee  C:\ssw\site\setup\daily.log

Notes:  Even if the command wraps on this page, it is entered as one line in your Daily.bat file.  This example assumes that your ssw installation is in C:ssw and your perl installation is in C:\perl. 

 

  Restart your virus scanning software if applicable.

 

This site last updated November 10, 2008.