Applying patches to Windows Versions

[AndyS|Dyalog]

After receiving a Dyalog APL Personal or Non-Commercial license, you are entitled for a period of two weeks to download the latest patches which can be applied to the interpreter in order to bring it uptodate.

DSS users are entitled to download whilest they have a valid DSS agreement, and DSS+ users are additionally entitled to download new versions of Dyalog APL. Other license agreements may also include these entitlements.

To apply patches, you use the PATCH workspace; either by downloading the patch files from http://my.dyalog.com using a web browser, or via the PATCH workspace itself. In either case, the user name and password is the one issued to you either as part of a DSS/DSS+ agreement, or that was included in the email when you received your Personal or Non-Commercial license.

If you download via a web browser, then it will be necessary to unzip the patch file before proceeding.

If you wish to save the patched file to $DYALOG, then you will need to start APL by right clicking on the shortcut and clicking on "Run As Administrator". Then )LOAD PATCH. The Configure button on the first page allows you to enter your username and password, and also caters for simple ftp proxy servers.

From then on, it is a question of following the prompts: note that the installation process creates a $DYALOG\base directory, in which the base builds of the development executable, the development DLL, the runtime executable and the runtime DLL are located. It is essential to use these as the files to be patched; for that reason, do not overwrite them !

The resulting patched file will be saved by default in $DYALOG. Note that under Windows it is not possible to alter a file which contains a currently-running executable, so you cannot save the patched file as $DYALOG\dyalog.exe for example. My preferred method is to save the file as a different name, and then alter the Dyalog startup icon to point to this new file. This allows you to quickly fallback to the previous executable if desired.

If you regularly apply patches, then you may prefer to initiate the patch mechanism by double clicking on the patch icon; you can run as administrator either by right clicking on the icon and selecting "Run as administrator", or to make this permanent, select the Properties of the Icon, and on the Compatibility Tab select the "Run as Adminstrator" checkbox. Note that this shortcut uses $DYALOG\base\dyalog.exe to run, so using this method it is possible to overwrite $DYALOG\dyalog.exe (assuming you have no other APL sessions running).

Dyalog recommends that you have a look at the rest of the DSS pages; there may be other fixes and downloads that are appropriate to your environment. Note that either you will need to "Run As Administrator" for each of these too, or you will be prompted for permission to copy files into directories which require Administrator privileges.

Dyalog intends to alter the PATCH workspace and associated webapges in the near future; please check back to see if there are changes to this note that will affect you.

[Dick Bowman]

Wondering whether it's worth pointing out that there's another way to patch, which has a hole I fell into.

Installation puts a "Patch Executables" entry into the Windows Start menu, which runs the version of dyalog.exe which is in the Base folder and therefore does not get changed by the patching process. So, if there are problems with the patching process which need a patched dyalog.exe, this route won't get you there.

Seems safest to ignore this "Patch Executables" option, and use the "start APL and load the workspace" method.

[Vince|Dyalog]

Wondering whether it's worth pointing out that there's another way to patch, which has a hole I fell into.

This was a bug (005387) in the 64-bit version of Dyalog 12.1. This bug has since been fixed. If people using the 64-bit version want to use the Patch Executables shortcut, they should first patch up dyalog.exe, and copy it to have another name.

Then, they can change the Patch Executables shortcut to use this new patched executable.

[thomasjacobs]

I just downloaded the non-commercial 13.2 Dyalog APL. Within the 14 days, can I just download again and expect to get all the patches and fixes incorporated into the main kluge? In other words, are the fixes/patches incorporated daily into the Version? Or does this happen only when Version 14 is released (which, as I understand, I'm entitled to!)? Thanks.

[Vince|Dyalog]

Hi Thomas,

Within the 14 days, you can use the DSS patch wizard as detailed above to update your dyalog.exe.

You should also download the latest version of our Dyalog .NET interface. This is available on the DSS pages of our website.

Please contact us at Dyalog Support if you have any problems.

Regards,

Vince