Drivers download links

[omri]

Hi All,

I am working on a product that will automatically update drivers on end user machines.

As part of this system, I should obtain download links to all available drivers from all vendors.

Do you have an idea - how con I get this data?

The best idea I currently have is a script that iterates vendors ftp sites and list all links to relevant files.
But the issue with this approach is that not all vendors has updated ftp site, or it's not accessible.

Please reply with any idea you have.

Many thanks,
Omri

[ahoodin]

Ok Interesting idea! I think the FTP idea is not bad. It is probably the most stable, although it will be a pretty hands on approach.

Well I have a couple of thoughts on how one could accomplish this in a dynamic fashion:

#1 If you want to make your own driver download program, I suggest starting from a Webspider integrated with a database. In this database there should be a map of device driver names from the device manager to vendor webpages. You may want to enumerate device names so you will need some code like that. You could scan the web page searching for new URL and parse the URL and update a central database to try to match your device to a newer version of the driver on HTTP or FTP.

#2 A system Admin might use a driver database to accomplish this (such as driversguide.com). This may be a pay option but as a side note there are some 3rd party websites that do pretty near exactly your project. ....just a note. You might look at their software to see this.

For #1 You may need:
#1 Web Spider Source Code:
CG article on WebSpiders:
http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/i-n/inte...cle.php/c3413/
3rd Party Link:
http://www.example-code.com/vcpp/spi...pleCrawler.asp
#2 Software to enumerate Device Names:
CG has some articles here in system programming
http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/w-p/system/
Another link on CP:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system...roperties.aspx

Alright HTH,

[omri]

Many thanks for your reply.

The part missing in the system is download drivers urls data base.
You suggest writing webspider for this.
I will look into this and see how it goes.

Thanks
Omri