As I cannot use rsynch to update ConTeXt, I was wondering if the MikTeX distribution might provide an alternative route to getting updates.
Is it a firewall problem or something else?
Firewall. I am protected by two company firewalls (so I'm told). There is no prospect of opening ports that are currently blocked and 'tunnelling' or whatever it's called would be seen as a contavention of company rules!
3) How often will the MikTeX distribution be updated with a new ConTeXt? I guess I only need updating a couple of times a year, now that MKIV is looking pretty good.
You need to ask Christian Schenk about that. ConTeXt is tightly bound to a specific LuaTeX version. So until version of LuaTeX is updated in MikTeX, there is no way to update ConTeXt there (unless somebody does a heavy patching or backporting of features; which won't happen). It is quite possible that LuaTeX will only be updated with MikTeX 2.10. The history of MikTeX says that there have usually been major version releases in intervals from 8 months up to 3 years, so maybe you won't see any ConTeXt update in MikTeX during the next year or two.
I guess I'll carry on using my own update method then: I download cont-tmf.zip (from http://www.pragma-ade.com/download-2.htm) then hunt for new binaries in the directory tree at http://minimals.contextgarden.net/. It's a pain but it seems to work at the moment. It would be nice if there were a .zip file that contained the latest binaries to go into texmf-mswin/bin. But perhaps that would open up another can of worms!? Perhaps now that MKIV has most features working I could just update with the stable releases rather than the betas. Thanks for your help. Richard Converteam UK Ltd. Registration Number: 5571739 and Converteam Ltd. Registration Number: 2416188 Registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Boughton Road, Rugby, Warwickshire, CV21 1BU. CONFIDENTIALITY : This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and may be privileged. If you are not a named recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to another person, use it for any purpose or store or copy the information in any medium. http://www.converteam.com Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.