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What Are the Production and Development Channels?

ABM Service is released on two channels. Production is the one for customer sites and carries no label anywhere. Development is the software supplier's own test builds, with "Development" in its names and a dev mark beside its version, and it is not installed on a customer's PC unless the software supplier asks for it, to test a fix.

What is the difference between the production and development channels of ABM Service?​

The production channel of ABM Service is the released product that customer sites run; the development channel is the software supplier's test builds of the next release, used on its own test machines. Each channel has its own setup, its own download page and its own update address, and a PC on one channel only ever updates from that channel.

  • Production — the setup file is ABMService-Machine-Setup-production.exe, from the production download page at https://download.abm-portal.com/downloads/. Its names carry no label: ABM Service Desktop in the Start menu, ABM Service Desktop Machine Components and ABM Service Desktop in Apps & Features, ABM Service on the sign-in window and in the About box.
  • Development — the setup file has "development" in its name. Every name says Development: ABM Service Development Desktop in the Start menu, ABM Service Development on the sign-in window and in the About box, a dev mark next to the version in each window's caption bar and in the window's name on the taskbar, and "dev" in the version number itself.

A setup is one channel for life: a production setup always installs production, and a development setup always installs development.

Should a customer PC ever have the development channel of ABM Service, to try a new version first?​

No, not as the site's own choice. Customer PCs use the production channel of ABM Service. Development builds are unfinished test releases of the next version, meant for the software supplier's test machines.

Both channels read and write the same ABM (Advanced Business Manager) databases, so a development build on a customer PC would be changing the customer's live data with software that has not been released. The development download page says so in a warning at the top: its builds are what the test servers run, and they install beside production, never over it.

So the development channel is not a way for a site to try the next release on one PC before everyone else. It can be installed on one PC, beside production, and your software supplier may ask you to do that to test a fix; do it only then. It comes from the Development builds link on the ABM Service download page, installs as ABM Service Development with its own launchers, its own copy of the app and its own update address, and changes nothing about the production install on that PC or on any other. Only ABM toolbar buttons pointed at its launchers, in the ABM Service Development\Desktop folder, or its own ABM Service Development Desktop Start menu entry, open it. Remember that it still works on your live ABM data.

If you find ABM Service Development Desktop in a customer PC's Start menu, or a dev mark beside the version in an ABM Service window, and nobody asked for it, uninstall the development channel and use production.

Can the production and development channels of ABM Service be installed on the same PC?​

Yes. The production and development channels of ABM Service install side by side on one PC without touching each other: two program folders, two Start menu entries, two entries of each kind in Apps & Features, separate settings and logs for each user, and separate update addresses.

  • Typing "ABM Service" in the Start menu shows both ABM Service Desktop and ABM Service Development Desktop.
  • In Task Manager, both appear as ABM.Service.Desktop.exe; the Description column on the Details tab tells them apart.
  • Uninstalling one channel leaves the other working.
  • Each ABM toolbar button opens the channel whose folder its path names, so a PC with both has two sets of launchers to choose from.

The only thing the two share is the ABM Service code-signing certificate's trust, which stays on the PC until the last ABM Service product of either channel is uninstalled.

The same holds for ABM Service Server: the development channel's ABM Service Development Server Manager installs beside the production one on a server, never over it, and the two managers never give two companies the same port.

How do I tell which channel and version an ABM Service PC is running?​

Look at the name. Production ABM Service shows ABM Service on its sign-in window and ABM Service Desktop in the Start menu, with no label; development shows Development in those names and a dev mark beside the version in each window's caption bar.

To see the exact version:

  1. Look at the caption bar at the top of any ABM Service window, which shows the version just before the window buttons.
  2. Choose About on the File menu of any ABM Service window. It shows the product name, the version (with the date it was built, when that is recorded), the company and the version of Windows.
  3. Look at the foot of the ABM Service sign-in window, which shows the control database, ABM's version and the ABM Service version.

A development version number has "-dev." and a date in it; a production version number is plain numbers only.