ServiceIsRunning property

Returns True if updater service is running

Type

A Boolean value

Remarks

If value of this property returns True, that means that wodAppUpdate has found wodUpdS2 service to be running with administrative privileges, and that it can be used to replace current binaries correct, with administrative privileges, even if user who is performing the update doesn't have administrative privileges.

More details about wodUpdS2 service:

Update service can be installed on deployed system (but is not neccessary for wodAppUpdate operation) if you want to avoid Vista operating system to show UAC prompt whenever regular user wants to update your application. This can potentially be a problem if regular user does not know administrator password and is not in administrator group - in which case update will fail. Same problem may occur on Windows XP if user belongs to restricted group.

Update service runs with administrative privileges, but is incapable of performing any other task than replacing your application files, thus is completely safe. It takes no CPU usage - it will be idle until request is made from wodAppUpdate for the update to be performed. When your application detects new update, and founds wodUpSv update service to be available, it will pass replacement-task to the service, and application will close itself. Now update service silently replaces your application files, and runs it again with same set of privileges as original application. UAC prompt is not required or shown for the update in this case.

If update service is not found, wodAppUpdate performs file-replace operation by itself, rising UAC elevation prompt if neccessary to perform actual replacement. Also, it is possible that even update service is installed that it's not used at all. If application has sufficient privileges to update itself, it will do so without help of the service.


Installing and removing wodUpdS2 service:

In order to install wodUpdS2.exe on deployed system, just copy that file to SYSTEM32 folder, and run it with -i switch

wodUpdS2 -i

Update service will install and run itself this way. No further steps are neccessary.

If you want to remove Update service from the system, just call it with -u switch

wodUpdS2 -u

and it will stop and remove itself from the system. You still have to delete wodUpdS2.exe file by yourself.

Platforms

Windows