Rename a running executable (exe) file [duplicate]

Answer 1

An airplane mechanic and a surgeon meet in a bar. The mechanic says "you know, we have basically the same job. We take broken stuff out and put new, better parts in." The surgeon says "yeah, but you don't have to keep the plane flying as you're making the repairs!"

Trying to update an application by moving files while the application is running seems about as dangerous as trying to fix an airplane in flight. Possible? Sure. Greatly increased risk of catestrophic crash? Yep.

If the application you are updating is a managed application, consider using ClickOnce Deployment. That way, the next time someone runs the application, if there is a new version available it will be copied down and installed automatically. That's much more safe and pleasant than trying to mess with an application while its still running.

Answer 2

In our organization, we solved the problem of Updates by having two release folders say EXE_A and EXE_B. We also have a release folder called EXE which only has links ALL of which points to either to EXE_A or EXE_B from which the user runs the applications.

When we publish a new version of the program, we publish it to the folder that is not referenced in the links and then update the links (EXE). In this way, you do not get into exceptions that users are holding the application / assemblies. Also if a user wants to run the updated version, all he need to do is close / re-execute the link in EXE folder.

Answer 3

If you use Windows Vista/Server2k8 or newer you could use mklink to create a symbolic link to the folder containing your application and start the application out of the "symblic linked folder" and then at the update create a new folder, e.g. "AppV2" and change the SymLink to that folder, so the next time the user restarts the application he starts it out of the new folder without noticing.

Renaming open files is ALWAYS a bad choice!

But in general I would think of a better deployment strategy anyway, because if you need to use such "hacks" it is always a messy situation. I don't know your application, but maybee ClickOnce would be a point to start, because you can configure it to check for updates on every start...

Answer 4

1. No, this is not acceptable. Do not do this. This is not a valid deployment mechanism. This should have been yours or his first clue:

   It sometimes throws an exception that the file is in use on his program but if he tries renaming it in a loop it will eventually succeed.

   And it won't work, anyway. His theory is quite wrong:

   Using that knowledge he wants to rename a running exe and copy over a new version of said exe such that anyone running their in memory copy of foo.exe are fine and anybody who opens a shortcut pointing to foo.exe will get a new copy with updates applied.

   Specifically, the copy in memory will not be automatically replaced with the new executable just because it has the same name. The reason that you're allowed to rename the executable in the first place is because the operating system is not using the file name to find the application. The original executable will still be loaded, and it will remain loaded until you explicitly unload it and load the new, modified executable.

   Notice how even modern web browsers like Chrome and Firefox with their super fancy automatic, in the background, no one ever notices that they exist, updaters still have to close and relaunch the application in order to apply the updates.

   Don't worry about shooting the messenger here. It's more likely that your customers and your tech support department will shoot you first.

2. See number 1.