Software Distribution and Patch Management

Question

How do home software such as Microsoft or antivirus companies fix / update their software?

Anti-virus companies do not send the full executable file; I guess only new virus signatures. Similarly, Ive noticed that Microsoft sends certain files to the $ NtUninstallKB ...... $ folder, which it creates when the Windows updater starts. I believe that in each such folder there is an installer that replaces only those libraries that need to be updated or fixed.

Questions

Is there a universal method for this, or does each house use its own methods?

I do not want to resend the entire application to each individual client. Suppose you need to modify some DLLs, or perhaps add more, as I should plan my final compiled application.

• Do I need to separate my application from several assemblies?
• If so, is there any compilation method that allows you to package specific classes in a specific DLL?

What I wrote down here are my thoughts on this issue, and I could be wrong. Can someone shed some light on this, please? I am considering introducing such a deployment management method and patches for the .net platform.

Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

There are several ways to do this, which I see, and this includes turning your application into just a shell that dynamically loads the functionality that you replace, simply completely replacing the files associated with the update (which most vendors are doing now), or that Interesting: Binary diffs . I will really look at the last element.