Here's a nice tip that explains the advantages (and disadvantages) of two capture mechanisms and how to use them both to create the best possible installation packages.

SmartMonitor

This Setup Capture mechanism monitors and records the installation's operations as they happen. This method is faster than snapshot comparisons, because it doesn't require a time-consuming scan of the computer. SmartMonitor records the following operations:

1. Copying, moving, deleting, or opening a file.
2. Replacing files even if they are the same size, modification date, and version.
3. Creating or removing a directory.
4. Creating, starting, stopping, or deleting a service.
5. Setting or deleting a registry value, creating or deleting a registry key.
6. Overwriting existing registry keys with the same value.
7. Installing ODBC drivers or configuring ODBC data sources.
8. Changing .INI files regardless of their...

Deployment Solution for Dell Servers leverages the IPMIutil project for interaction with Dell servers via their Base Management Controllers. The supplemental file available for download with Deployment Solution for Dell Servers contains a copy of IPMIutil 1.9.8.

Recently, IPMIutil version 2.0 has been released with several enhancements and bug fixes. The most significant of these changes is a bugfix that fixes a problem that existed when trying to discover or perform remote power control commands with Dell 1855 blades.

To upgrade the version of IPMIutil used by Deployment Solution for Dell Servers and take advantage of these features, follow these simple steps:

1. Visit http://ipmiutil.sourceforge.net and download the file: ipmiutil-2.0.0-win32.zip (this contains the windows version of ipmiutil)
2. Extract the contents of the downloaded zip file, and...

Have you ever wondered why Add/Remove Programs doesn't remove everything you think it should? WiseUser enlightens us with these answers to a few questions from the "mysteries of life" folder.

There are four common reasons for why files may not be removed during uninstallation:

• The components to which these files belong are marked as permanent. (This is done through the Attributes column of the Component table.)
• None of the components to which these files belong have component GUIDs. (The value for the component in the ComponentId column of the Component table is NULL). Components without GUIDs are not managed by Windows Installer.
• If the keypath of the component has a shared DLL refcount, then the component will not be uninstalled.
• If the component is installed...

Remember that {choke}cute{cough} owl that the sales guys used to hand out on their visits to coerce, I mean, to propose your purchase of an Altiris product?

Well that guy used to be called Solution Sam, now he has gone into hibernation somewhere, or was killed when they cut down his giant redwood tree to print up more Altiris manuals.

Either way, his legacy lives on as a website, and now you can go right there to get all of the latest and greatest binaries for each Altiris solution.

This gets updated all the time. Sometimes without ever changing the actual version of a solution, just the size of the files change for some reason. But the XML file's date will tell you when it was last updated. Sneaky, sneaky.

Here's the site:
http://www.solutionsam.com/solutions/6_0/