Self-updating and manual updates
Grunt supports both manual and automatic updating modes. Whether your installation of Grunt will automatically update to new versions as they are released depends on:
- How Grunt was installed on your computer
- Whether automatic updates are turned on by your organization (default is ON)
To learn more about how Grunt can be installed, and an introduction to how this affects automatic updates, see this article.
How can I check if automatic updates are on?
Whether Grunt will automatically self-update depends first and foremost on where Grunt is installed on your computer. You can check this by navigating to the following path on your computer:
C:\Users\<user-name>\AppData\Local\Programs\Grunt\
Replace <user-name> with the name of your user. Note that the AppData folder might be hidden. If so, you must change your folder settings so that hidden files and folders are visible - see this article to learn how.
If you can see the Grunt folder, then your installation is per user, and automatic updates will be ON by default, unless your organization has turned off automatic updates. Reach out to your IT department to ask if this is the case.
If you cannot see the Grunt folder at this location, then you will likely find it under
C:\Program Files\
If so, automatic updates are off. This likely means that your IT department is in control of automatic updates, either manually or through a software deployment system such as SCCM or Intune (often, these are referred to as "Software Center").
Manual updates
Grunt also supports manual updates. You can download the latest version of Grunt here. Simply run the installer and Grunt will update to the latest version. Note that if your installation is placed under Program Files, you will need admin privileges to run the updater.
Update schedule and channels
In practice, there are three release channels
- Stable: Battle tested versions of Grunt that aim to be close to bug free
- Early: Release candidates that contain new features that have been tested by Grunt but have not bee distributed to many users yet.
- Delayed/Manual: A channel for users where updates are performed manually. We notify IT admins when versions on this channel are available for deployment through SCCM or similar
We strive to release to Grunt's Stable release channel four (4) times per year. In practice, releases may occur slightly more or slightly less often. Additionally, on rare occasions we may choose to release a hotfix to a stable version if we conclude that a bug we have discovered warrants such a release.
Most users will be placed on Grunt's Stablerelease channels. Such users will receive updates when Grunt has deemed a version stable and ready for wider release. However, there is a separate EARLY release channel that can be opted into. When on this channel, users will receive updates more frequently and be allowed to test new features earlier. The downside is, of course, that such features are potentially less stable and less tested.
All users within an organization should be on the same version to avoid versioning conflicts!
We recommend that all users within a single organization remain on the same release channel as their peers. This ensures that there are no versioning conflicts.
If your organization is sufficiently small and your users are eager to try to new features as they are published, you can optionally contact us support@grunt.pro or, preferably, reach out to your main contact to move your organization to the Early channel.