I wish I could figure out a way to make this fool proof. No luck yet.
Here is more info, and, as always, I can only hope this adds more light
than heat to the discussion. For those that don't want to read the whole
story: here is the important bit: the SCP files are no longer part of
File/Web-update-data-files. And, I think, this is "a good thing."
A WriteLog installation has lots of files. As things change, some of
those files need updating. I preface my treatise with the remark that
updating these files is NOT required in the sense that any logs you
submit will still be valid and will be scored properly by every contest
sponsor that I know of. You only update because it gives you more up to
date information for your decisions during the contest operation.
The files can be categorized into these three groups:
1. Those files that can only be updated by the Windows installer and
only when running as admin. These files are the executables (and a few
other odd files that I have failed to relocate over time) that live in
Program Files\WriteLog\Programs (or its x86 equivalent on 64 bit
Windows). You run either a FULL install or an UPGRADE install of
WriteLog, and it updates these, and there is no other supported update
method (unless I personally email you and ask you to overwrite a file in
there for test purposes :-)
2. Those files that are not executable and therefore change on a
different schedule than the executables, but are also critical to
WriteLog's runtime execution are located in ProgramData\WriteLog.
"Critical" means WriteLog just won't work properly without them, and
their location in this directory is required; WriteLog looks nowhere
else to find them. Updating those files is also only possible as admin.
The WriteLog FULL installer has copies of these files and the UPGRADE
installer does not. And even the FULL installer only deploys its copies
as a last resort--if it discovers this is a fresh WriteLog install.
It gets a little more complicated. The files in ProgramData themselves
break down into two kinds: (a) those maintained by the WriteLog team and
(b) those maintained on country-files.com. However, at least we have
made the recent progress that, as of version 11.32, the only supported
way to update either type (a) or type (b) is using the menu items in
WriteLog named "File/web update data files" and "File/web update country
files". I haven't mentioned the SCP files. That is because they are not
in this category. And, based on this discussion forcing me to think it
through, the SCP files are no longer downloaded by either (a) or (b).
3. The SCP files are none of the above and, effective immediately, not
part of the File/web-update-data-files download. There is no prohibition
against placing them in ProgramData/WriteLog (as earlier messages on
this thread indicate) but there is also no such requirement (like there
is for the country files and ini files in 2 above). Yes, "it would be
nice" if WriteLog automated the download of the SCP files and the
necessary writelog.ini entry to point to them (as has also been noted on
this thread) but, as of this writing, that is not how it works. And I
have removed from writelog.com the often stale copy you would get using
File/web-update-data-files. You have to download the SCP files using
your browser, they are not on writelog.com, and you have to use the
appropriate WriteLog menu item (Setup/Super-check-partial) to point
WriteLog at the location where you downloaded them.
All the remarks above still hold, more-or-less, for those not running
the most recent WriteLog version (11.32). The major difference is that
you have no File/Web-update-country-files and you have to use an
alternative to get country file updates. That difference is described in
detail here: http://writelog.com/downloads/writelog-versions#MULTIPLIER
Wayne
> John,
>
> Apparently with V11.32D the file updating process is both automatic
> and semi-automatic. See the note from Jim AD1C below. Of course you
> can continue to update the DTA files manually as you have been doing.
> 73,
> Gary AL9A
>
> Hi Gary,
>
> Wayne W5XD has to manually update the data files, including SCP, and
> package them into a ZIP file. Since it's done by hand, it depends on
> Wayne's schedule.
>
> WriteLog points to the country files directly, so it always gets the
> current version of those.
>
> 73 - Jim AD1C
>
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