Hotfix zips - safe to delete?

[wolfie]

I have slickedit on a usb stick and having applied the last two hot fixes to v21.0.3.0, I now have about 54MB of hotfix zip files chewing up space in the config directory - is it safe to delete some or all of them?

config\21.0.3\hotfixes\hotfix_se2103_1_cumulative.zip
config\21.0.3\hotfixes\hotfix_se2103_2_cumulative.zip
config\21.0.3\plugins\com_slickedit.base.ver.21.0.3.0.1.zip
config\21.0.3\plugins\com_slickedit.base.ver.21.0.3.0.2.zip

[Clark]

I think the list of hot fixes is used for SlickEdit to know which ones have been installed (Help>About>Product Updates>Listed Installed Fixes). Other than that, I don't think you need them.

[wolfie]

The problem is that if you remove the zips, the hotfix information disappears from the About box leaving me not knowing if the hotfixes are still in place or not.

Also, when you apply a cumulative hotfix, shouldn't the hotfix mechanism at the very least flush out the previous hotfixes as being redundant?

[Clark]

The problem is that if you remove the zips, the hotfix information disappears from the About box leaving me not knowing if the hotfixes are still in place or not.

I guess it depends on how important this is to you. When a hot fix is installed, there almost certainly will be a "slick.ver.21.0.3.0.x.sta" file. You can use that as your indicator. I think the x matches the hot fix number.

Also, when you apply a cumulative hotfix, shouldn't the hotfix mechanism at the very least flush out the previous hotfixes as being redundant?

It does seem like the older hot fixes are not necessary and should be cleaned up. It's a little tricky to clean them up since it's likely that the last hot fix files (.sta and plugins/com_slickedit_base.ver.x.y.z.cfg.xml) are still open. Still doable though.

[wolfie]

I'd forgotten about the .sta files, which just adds to my case! 

Is there a guide somewhere as to which install/config files are (relatively) safe to prune in the interests of keeping an installation (especially on USB) as slim as possible? I have already exported my settings in case things go awry.

[Clark]

Not specifically for pruning your installation.

We will look into removing old hot fix data when a new hot fix is installed. Definitely a waste of disk space. It always annoys me that Ubuntu installed so many OS updates that I often run out of disk space on my root partition because the old updates aren't removed.

[wolfie]

In the meantime, as long as I make a note of which hotfix I last installed, is it reasonably safe to delete hotfix_se2103_*_cumulative.zip, com_slickedit.base.ver.21.0.3.0.*.zip and vslick.ver.21.0.3.0.*.sta and just keep vslick.sta?

[Clark]

You need the latest versioned .sta. You also need the latest versioned plugins/com_slickedit_base.<latest-hotfix-ver>.zip.

You don't need the older ones though. You do need the unversioned vslick.sta too.

[wolfie]

OK, got it, thanks!

[Clark]

It turns out there you can unload a hot fix to get back to the previous. It's not documented or on the GUI though.

[wolfie]

I presume (hope?) that's a pretty rare use-case? 

[Clark]

Yes it's definitely rare so not real useful. I was hoping we could just delete after installing the new hot fix. Could prompt at the end of hot fix installation but how is a user supposed to know that there could have a problem.

[wolfie]

Also potentially a problem if the user has applied cummulative hotfix 'N' (but no earlier hotfixes) and hotfix 'N' is found to be flaky.

So, to be 100% safe you would need a rollback mechanism to go back to the release version and then reapply hotfix 'N-1' or whatever is being recommended?

[Clark]

The undocumented command is unload_hotfix. I wouldn't use it unless you had a bad problem with the latest hot fix.

[wolfie]

Good to know, thanks.