@taazz thanks for the pointers.
(1):Thanks for the confirmation. I've tried it, and it works great from a win GUI app and a Win console app.
(2): the app starts the updater as a process, but the process dies with the app if I close it. How can I close down a GUI app from a console app? Is there a way?
(3): The coding is already done for the version detection and download of update in the main app. It works fine, so I'm not about to change it unless I absolutely have to (see (2))
(4): Good tip. Thanks.
(5): I thought so. The Sourceforge download via a thread works really well (in Windows, anyway). I'm trying to simplify as much of the updating process I can, with the ThreadDownload stuff in an encapsulated class.
I'm well underway on this. I just need the way to kill a running app (I have the full path) from a console.
== edit ==
I could pass the updater the Handle of the running app (via ParamStr) and kill it via a WinAPI call, but I would prefer a cross-platform (well, Linux, anyway) method.