Updating MikTeX

Alan Ristow

2007-07-31 15:02:11 UTC

Post by Diamond, Mark
I have installed the Basic MikTeX 2.6 using the setup EXE file. The packages
for the installation were first put into a local repository by the installer
and then on a second pass, MikTeX was installed.

Are you sure you didn't use the "complete" installer rather than the
"basic" installer? The basic installer does it all in one pass and
doesn't create a local repository. It sounds like you used the complete
installer, but selected "basic" as your installation size on the second
pass.

Post by Diamond, Mark
When I now use the package updater, there *appears* to be no option allowing
the packages to be added to the local repository. Instead, they are
installed directly. Have I missed something? Can I use one of the included
command line utilities to bring the correct package to a local respository?

As far as I know, there aren't any MiKTeX tools that will download
installation packages to a local repository. You might have a look at
the command line options for the MiKTeX Package Manager,

http://docs.miktex.org/manual/mpm.html

but unless I've misunderstood something, none of them does what you're
asking.

OTOH, adding a package to your local repository should be as simple as
downloading the files of your choice from

http://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/systems/win32/miktex/tm/packages/

and putting it in your repository (though to work correctly you'll need
to include the latest versions of the miktex-zzdb files you'll find in
that directory). I imagine it would be easy enough to script -- after
all, it amounts to maintaining a local mirror of the MiKTeX package
database. I'm a bit curious why you want to do that, though....

Post by Diamond, Mark
A second question relates to the following. When I use ctrl-click to
(tediously) select multiple individual additional packages in the Package
Manager, a failure of the Package Manager to connect to a repository results
in all the selection being lost. Is there a trick to avoiding this?

I'm not aware of a way to avoid losing your selections, but if you
select Sychronize or Change Package Repository from the Repository menu
*before* you make you selections you'll know whether the connection will
succeed and/or switch to one that you know will succeed.

Alternatively, you can use MiKTeX's install-on-the-fly mechanism to
install the packages you actually use in your documents -- just compile
and let MiKTeX automatically install anything it's missing. It *is* a
little slow because MiKTeX downloads each missing package individually,
but it does keep you from having to search the packages manually and
ctrl-click to select them.

Alan