How can I disable the automatic checking for updates when Google App Engine Launcher is started?

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I've been tinkering with the GAE and I enjoy the ease of use of the GAE Launcher that is available with the Windows SDK.

My problem is that when I start the application, it takes it a long time for it to become responsive. This is because the program first checks for updates before starting the app. This causes it to hang, while it's waiting for a response. My problem is that my primary dev machine is behind a proxy server, and the GAE Launcher is being blocked by the proxy.

Is there a way that I can disable the check for updates to the GAE when I start the launcher? Maybe a command that I can pass to the underlying executable through my shortcut?

3 Answers

Google App Engine (GAE) use the python urllib2 library to check for updates. This library gets the proxy settings from *_proxy environment variables, instead of the windows registry.

By default, ProxyHandler uses the environment variables named <scheme>_proxy, where <scheme> is the URL scheme involved. For example, the http_proxy environment variable is read to obtain the HTTP proxy’s URL.

If you need to use a proxy and don't have this variable properly defined, your GAE Launcher will lock until a connection timeout, delaying the start of the program.

If you create a new environment variable called http_proxy with host_or_ip:port, GAE Launcher will start in a blink of an eye.

To define an environment variable, go to: Control Panel -> System and Security -> System -> Advanced system settings -> Advanced Tab -> Environment Variables...

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