Updating the software, with or without Internet

The normal update

When a new version exists, the program tells you when it opens. You decide whether to install it now or later. The download and the installation both happen inside the software, so there is no separate installer to hunt for and no browser download to approve.

You can also check for a new version yourself at any time from the update screen. On top of that, the program checks on its own every three months, and it never checks while an event is running. Nothing interrupts you on the floor.

Updates to the version you bought are included in the license. There is no maintenance contract and no annual renewal to keep the software current.

Updating from a file, with no Internet

This is the case for the laptop that lives in the meeting hall and never sees a network, and for machines behind a corporate firewall that blocks everything outbound. The route is a file on a USB drive:

1. On any computer with Internet, download the update package. It is a single

file with the extension .rsupd.

2. Copy it to a USB drive.
3. On the event computer, open the program and go to the update screen, then

choose the option to update from a file.

4. Point it at the file on the drive.

The rest is identical to a normal update. The package contains the full version, not a patch, so it does not matter how many releases behind you are.

Signed packages

Every update package is digitally signed. If the file is corrupted in transit, truncated by a slow copy to the drive, or altered by anything on the way, the program refuses to install it and tells you the signature did not verify.

That refusal is the protection working, not a defect. Download the package again, copy it again, and check that the copy finished before you eject the drive.

If an update fails halfway

The program copies the working version aside before it applies anything. If something fails during the installation, it puts the previous version back and you are running again on what you had this morning. You never end up with a half installed program that opens to an error.

Your events, participants, schedules and audio files are not touched by an update. They live in your data, not in the program files.

Before a show, not during one

Update at least a few days before the event, never on the morning of. Not because updating is risky, but because any change on the eve of an event deserves a test, and the day itself has no room for one.

The test is short. After the update, open the program, load the event you are about to run, and confirm three things: the participant list is complete, the schedule is there, and the audio cues still play. Then open the second screen once to be sure it still lands on the projector.

Before you update, back up

Generate a backup first, especially on the machine that holds events you have already run. The backup file carries the database and the audio files together, and it restores onto the same machine or onto a new one.

Rollback protects you against a failed installation. A backup protects you against everything else: a drive that dies the following week, a laptop that walks out of the office, a hall computer that somebody reimages over the weekend. The two are not substitutes for each other, and generating one takes less than a minute.