Spring RTS Engine

I prefer the use of broadcast. It look more official, important, less confusing etc...

Yah, just some type of message that only the developer can send to clients... Making the Guardian messages show up like regular private messages is the fault, not because it's ineffective/rude... It's because ~anyone~ can do this, so there's no way of knowing if the message sender is a legitimate source. You could just have the client check a webpage, say something like this: if (current clients version) != (body of html file)
{
Open default web browser to http://webserver/path/latestclient.zip
}

Simple enough, I believe this is a .net project? I don't know .net, but c, i know that :D
For more reading on ShellExecute check msdn out:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/defau ... xecute.asp

I think the guardians a better idea. Why bother when you can give users the chance to upgrade in their own time, they might ahve reason nto to upgrade for all you know. Do what AOL do and make the guardian messages stand out, like AOL mail opens up and looks different from ordinary mail.

the guardian was good, just need a client version number, so you dont keep thinking you are outdated.
(or at least a last release date).

how is the Guardian not secure? The only problem I can see is if someone else registers the name Guardian; but of course that is probably not possible. Atleast I haven't tried :p

Here's what you do, make the Guardian Show up with those "*** channel messages" without the <Guardian> bit... that way it looks more legit... and maybe rename it to <Service Update>...

hrmph wrote:how is the Guardian not secure? The only problem I can see is if someone else registers the name Guardian; but of course that is probably not possible. Atleast I haven't tried :p

Ok... Guordian Guardien Gardian... Need I continue? Let's not forget that 99% of e-mail based viruses spread because of thier appearance of comming from a friend, etc... (I've hurd of crackers requesting username/passwords of company employees over the phone, or through e-mail, etc... and actually getting them).

That's why Guardian is insecure. Now if Guardian messages didn't look like any other private message, it would be more secure. Opening a 2nd window with the title "Update from Guardian" or what have you would do. Or as I suggested, simply checking a pre-set website for the lastest version number, and when a conflique exists opening the default web browser to an update page would suffice.