a² free and personal - update info - 07/13/2004

QUOTE
Hi guys,

well first I had only a few points listed what was changed. But well, I guess there should be a few more information.

Well what was changed:
Scanner, Updater and Guard.

We improved the Windows 95 compatibility with the very first Windows 95 variants. A² should work with all Windows 95 versions now . Looking forward to the upcoming Windows XP SP2 release we backported some a² v2 routines that were already tested by many SP2 users to make sure a² v1 is Windows XP SP2 ready . This doesn't neccessarily mean the SP2 will be released before a² v2 ... its just to be sure .

While we backported some routines from v2 to v1 to increase Windows XP SP2 compatibility we also decided to rework the updater. Many had some nasty proxy server issues or very high system load. Well we backported the v2 updating "engine" to the v1 updater introducing 2 new features that you can't see on client side directly:

First we introduced load balancing. This was necessary cause of the high update load. We have more than 800000 customers so far producing more than 1500 GB of update traffic every month. Thats why we had to reduce update frequency in the past to ensure the update servers won't crash under the high load. This will change now cause there isn't one server anymore there are 3 servers serving your update requests. For you this means: More frequent updates and faster downloads.

Secondly we prepared the update for the big a² v2 update. We want to be sure nobody has to do a full reinstall of a². You just have to use the update feature to switch to the next upcoming a² generation.

Of cause we reworked many details. Just compare the system load produced by the old and by the new updater .

And well ... last but not least a little status about a² v2 cause we get hundreds of mails a week:

Currently we are fixing the last issues of the guard and the used drivers. So far they are quite stable cause our testers did a great job finding bugs (thanks again for your great work buddies ). Originally we planned to release 2 further internal beta stages but we finally decided to release only one further internal beta and to release a public beta version as soon as possible .

I hope this helps a little bit to reduce the number of "When will a² v2 be released?" mails .

Oh and by the way:

You need 2 update steps. The first step installs the new updater and after a restart the new updater installs the remaining updates .
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