[IDEA] Disable "New Version Available" prompt for Mirth Connect Administrator Launcher

[petegam]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Continually getting prompted to upgrade the Mirth Connect Administrator Launcher is frustrating since we know we will always cancel the prompt until our development team approves an upgrade.

Describe your use case
As a vendor of Mirth, here is our Use Case: We have a LOT of installations of Mirth. We prefer to stay at the installed version until our dev team validates new versions of Mirth and new versions of the Launcher. We also like to standardize on specific versions so we know which versions we are supporting in the field without having to troubleshoot N number of versions.

Describe the solution you'd like
When starting the Launcher, provide a checkbox (ie. Check for Launcher upgrade) such that when it is disabled, the Launcher will not check for an upgrade. The value should persist across launches.
Additionally, when the launcher is installed, provide the same checkbox so that on the first start of the Launcher, the desired value is already configured.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Update C:\Program Files\Mirth Connect Administrator Launcher\.install4j\i4jparams.conf so that the url string for com.install4j.runtime.beans.actions.update.CheckForUpdateAction is set to no value.

[jonbartels]

@petegam does your workaround modify the installer before the installer is executed or is that conf file in the installed application?

Given that OP is able to block the behavior by altering an Install4J file, that suggests that the Install4J auto-update feature is driving this. Does Install4J allow the user to enable or disable auto-updates at install time?

I think that auto-update should be enabled by default for most users and installations. It should be SELECTIVELY disabled for users like OP in more restrictive environments.

[petegam]

@jonbartels, currently the workaround modifies the conf file in the installed app. Thanks for mentioning modified installer and Install4J auto-update... I'll investigate...

Agreed on the selective disable.

[Kurt-AZ]

Hi @petegam

Totally agree on this idea.
In fact, I just raised a support case with NextGen with the same question last Friday.
Support redirected me to your IDEA post :-)

Awaiting a final solution from NextGen, I will try your suggestion on modifying the Install4J file.

Apart from disabeling the auto-update feature, I also requested if it was possible to do a silent install of the application by commandline.

[pacmano1]

Do you all really have the admin launcher installed all over the place? We have it installed on mirth engineer workstations only. Unless you are in a jumpbox like environment of course. Not knocking the ask here just puzzled on the quantity of installs.

[petegam]

Hi @pacmano1, thank you for the inquiry. Yes, as part of the Use Case where we are a Vendor supporting many clients in On-Prem environments, the admin launcher is installed in each On-Prem environment.

[pacmano1]

So no direct access to port 8443 on those servers over your VPN, painful!

[Kurt-AZ]

Do you all really have the admin launcher installed all over the place? We have it installed on mirth engineer workstations only. Unless you are in a jumpbox like environment of course. Not knocking the ask here just puzzled on the quantity of installs.

Hi @pacmano1

We are not in the case of a Vendor supporting many clients, but we have several people throughout the hospital that have read-only access to specific Mirth environments and specific channels on them.
So all those installations are on non Mirth engineer workstations as well.
Therefore we would like to manage the MCAL application in a same way as we do with many other applications (through a centralised MECM platform).

[pacmano1]

Good use case information for Nextgen.