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Force automatic Eviews update if available

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 8:41 am
by jfgeli
Hi there,

Is there a way to force an automatic Eviews update at a regular interval (i.e. every week) if available? If it is not, this possibility would be a nice addition to future versions.

Best,

Fede

Re: Force automatic Eviews update if available

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 8:42 am
by EViews Gareth
What do you mean by force?

Check the web to see if updates are available, and if they are refuse to open unless the user updates?

Re: Force automatic Eviews update if available

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 8:56 am
by jfgeli
In our organization, we have developed common routines that are shared among different colleagues. We have more than 10 local licenses and we have to be constantly checking in every computer if we are using the same version. I know we could choose never to update Eviews but we want to profit from the fact that you are regularly improving it. Hence, if there would be a way of making sure my colleagues and I have the latest version without them checking by some automatic procedure, this would be highly appreciated.

Re: Force automatic Eviews update if available

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 9:21 am
by EViews Gareth
Since updating EViews requires admin rights, there is no way to automatically do it (Windows, rightfully, prevents an application from doing stuff like that).

You could use the @builddate function in your common routines to check whether a user is as up to date as you want them to be, and then error if they aren't.

Re: Force automatic Eviews update if available

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 9:32 am
by startz
If you don't have admin rights, what happens if EViews is set to Options/EViews Auto-Update from web/Check for updates automatically?

If the update fails due to no admin rights, the user would still be signaled that an update is available, no?

Re: Force automatic Eviews update if available

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 9:35 am
by EViews Gareth
Check for update automatically only checks. The user is notified an update is available whether they have admin rights or not. It is only when they try to install the update that the admin rights issue would kick in.

Re: Force automatic Eviews update if available

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 9:39 am
by startz
So EViews can be set to check for the latest version for the OP without intervention, but if they want to install the updates it will require manual intervention (as it should with no administrator rights.)

Re: Force automatic Eviews update if available

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:59 am
by jfgeli
We all have admin rights. I was hoping there was a command I could run as a programmed task every Monday that would check if there is a new version and install it if necessary unattended.

Re: Force automatic Eviews update if available

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 11:02 am
by startz
jfgeli wrote:We all have admin rights. I was hoping there was a command I could run as a programmed task every Monday that would check if there is a new version and install it if necessary unattended.

The built-in update facility almost does that. It automatically checks for an update on launch and then asks if you want to do the update. If the answer is yes, then just a couple of clicks are required.

Re: Force automatic Eviews update if available

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 11:16 am
by EViews Gareth
I think he wants to force his users to click yes.

Windows won't allow an automatic update even with user admin rights.

Re: Force automatic Eviews update if available

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 12:02 am
by jfgeli
Hi, I want to save my colleagues from dealing with the update process. I want them that every time they open or use (in the background) Eviews, their version is the latest available. I have to reasons for that: 1) It is not just a couple of clicks, they also need to have Excel closed (otherwise some additional components won't install properly). Usually, they have many Excel instances opened and they prefer to skip the installation of a new Eviews version. 2) Many processes we run are with Eviews in the background so the user never interacts with its local version of Eviews but rather with an Excel sheet that kicks other Eviews procedures using VBA.

Re: Force automatic Eviews update if available

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 6:22 am
by EViews Gareth
Yeah, Windows won’t allow EViews to do that.