Occult 4.0.9.0 is now available as an update to existing installations of Occult4.
This update incorporates a number of significant changes and improvements, many of which have come about as a result of suggestions from users. These will be summarised in two further emails, as well as a further email indicating future changes.
The most important change with this update is the ability to update the program from within Occult.
**IMPORTANT**
This present update is the last update requiring users to _manually_ download an update file from the IOTA web site. All future updates will occur through the Occult program.
*** REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT ***
ALL USERS ARE STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO UPDATE THEIR VERSION OF OCCULT TO THIS NEW VERSION. This will avoid difficulties with updating Occult in the future.
To update to this new version of Occult:
A. Download the program update file from
http://www.lunar-occultations.com/occult4/occultupdate.zip
and unzip it into the Occult 4 directory
B. Run Occult. At the bottom left you should see a notification that data updates are available. Click that notification - and you will be taken to the downloads page. At the top left there is advice of the number of items that are tagged for download. Download all the tagged items.
To learn more about the new Updating process, read the Help topic that is available under the new Menu item on the Main form:
Program updates.... Help with updates
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IMPORTANT - Frequency of update checking
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Several data updates per month can be expected - especially for asteroidal occultation observations, and lunar occultation observations. [This is mainly because people are reporting observations, which is what we do!] Some users will want to update files whenever updates are available. Other users will only want to update the program and data files on an infrequent basis. You can set how often the program will automatically check for updates, under
Maintenance, User Settings
at the 2nd item (Check for availability for updates to the Occult program and data files).
The available options are:
- every start up
- daily
- weekly
- monthly
- yearly
- never
with the default setting being monthly.
Note that you can manually check for updates at any time, using the items under the new Menu item
Program updates...
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IMPORTANT - VISTA and Windows7 users
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If you have problems with the new update process, it will be caused by the User Account setting. There are two ways to avoid this (if it is a problem). The first way is to ensure the User Account setting is set to Off whenever you do an update. The second way is to move the entire Occult 4 directory to a location outside of the Program Files directory structure. Indeed, for this reason the default location for new installations of Occult is the C: root directory.