Techniques for software and data updates

Factual Questions
1

I’m looking at taking on a job somewhat outside my experience. The mission is to set up a website that will allow users of a WindowsCE hardware product to easily update their firmware and data.

The general scheme is a familiar one: The product ships with installed firmware and a CD that includes PC software and data. Users will be required (okay, strongly encouraged) to register their purchase, at which point they can update to the latest firmware version and select geographic data that covers their areas of interest.

Users can check in at any time to learn if later versions of firmware, PC software or data is available. The assumption is that users are only moderately computer-savvy and should not find this sort of update to be at all challenging.

What I’ve described sounds fairly mainstream, so my sense is that reliable off-the-shelf solutions that provide this sort of functionality should be available. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

2

The typical setup is that you have an ActiveX control on the website that gets downloaded when the user visits. You can then load and query it for info on what they have, and offer them upgrades accordingly. There may be some differences on Windows CE, but that should give you something to search on.