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Endpoint Management Community Blog

Showing posts tagged with Wise Packaging
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Do not use gacutil.exe in an Application Setup
R-Vijay | 19 Oct 2007 | 0 comments

Gacutil must not be called from a custom action. Gacutil is not designed to be used during installation.

Gacutil.exe works, but it is a developer tool, and developer tools go into SDKs and not runtime packages typically. It isn't really appropriate to put more tools into the runtime because that causes it to get larger, which makes it more difficult for applications to redistribute because of increased download size, etc.

In general, installing an assembly to the GAC is an application deployment activity, and is most often done during application setup. One should use Windows Installer to install your application. Starting with version 2.0, Windows Installer has built-in functionality to install assemblies to the GAC - the MsiAssembly and MsiAssemblyName tables in particular.

Its always better to use a MSI as an installer and directly authoring files, registry and GAC installation steps using built-in Windows Installer functionality instead of using a batch...

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Setting ALLUSERS, REBOOT, REINSTALLMODE in Wise Package Studio
WiseUser | 19 Oct 2007 | 1 comment

We Can set the following property values as an administrator option in Wise Package studio instead of giving the values in the properties. This option is not used by most package developers.

Type of installation:

Per machine installation
Per user installation
Determined by user access

REBOOT Option:

Reboot If required
Always Reboot
Never Reboot

When using other settings like Rollback options, create advertised shortcuts as regular shortcuts, reinstall options etc.

Click to view.

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More Info on the Difference Between Command Line and Transforms
WiseUser | 17 Oct 2007 | 0 comments

What is the difference between customizing an installation through the use of command-line parameters and the application of transforms? Get your answers (right here) while they're hot.

The main difference between these two types of customizations is that the customizations applied using the command line are only applied to the current installation but the changes made using transforms are applied during the original installation and all future repair and modifications of an installation.

When customizing the .MSI through a command line, you can only modify properties. An example of modifying a property through the command line is:

msiexec /i C:\Example.msi ALLUSERS=2.

This would set the property ALLUSERS to 2 for the current installation. However, this customization is not applied to the cached version of the .MSI, so during repairs, the value of ALLUSERS would be the value assigned at design time.

If you want to further customize an .MSI,...

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Microsoft Best Practices on Packaging
R-Vijay | 11 Mar 2009 | 2 comments

Here are a few tips I picked up from Microsoft about how to "color inside the lines" when using any tool (including Wise Package Studio) to create an MSI. Hope these help.

  • Match components in previous versions of the MSI:
    1. Keypath resource matches a resource in previous .MSI list
    2. Match component layout of previous .MSI
    3. Set component key to match previous version.
  • Add all executable files to their own components
  • Create new component for the resource
  • Add all .TLB files to their own components
  • Group matching .HLP and .CNT files together
  • Group matching .CHM and .CHI files together
  • Put registry keys associated with files or components in matching components.
  • Put current user registry keys in their own component
  • Put non-current user registry keys in their own component.
  • Group all non-executable files to...
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Version Numbers and MSI Upgrades; A Best Practice
WiseUser | 16 Oct 2007 | 0 comments

As a matter of best practices, we have a standard way to increment version numbers and codes based on the extent of the upgrade. I thought this might be useful to others in the community who are faced with similar challanges. As always, these worked for us but your mileage may vary.

Small Update

  • Package Code - change
  • Product Version - don't change
  • Product Code - don't change
  • Upgrade Code - don't change

Minor Update

  • Package Code - change
  • Product Version - change
  • Product Code - don't change
  • Upgrade Code - don't change

Major Upgrade

  • Package Code - change
  • Product Version - change
  • Product Code - change
  • Upgrade Code - don't change
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Configuring all Windows Installer Installations to Run with Elevated Privileges
WiseUser | 16 Oct 2007 | 0 comments

Here's a quick step-by-step that walks you through the process necessary to set up your packaging system so it creates packages (all packages) with elevated privileges.

  1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).
  2. Navigate to:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer
  3. From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD Value.
  4. Enter the name AlwaysInstallElevated, then press Enter.
  5. Double-click the new value, set it to 1, then click OK.
  6. Navigate to:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer
  7. From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD Value.
  8. Enter the name AlwaysInstallElevated, then press Enter.
  9. Double-click the new value, set it to 1, then click OK.
  10. Close the registry editor.
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MSIZAP Utility
WiseUser | 15 Oct 2007 | 3 comments

MSIZAP: A cool little utility that removes the MSI meta data from your computer. Us it when (for some reason) uninstall is broken and won't freakin' do it's job ... uninstall.

Actually, msizap does NOT remove any of the files or registry entries that were added by the installation. It only cleans out the Windows Installer's internal database of information so that it LOOKS to Windows Installer as if things have been uninstalled, but the files are left on the hard drive (and need to be cleaned up by hand).

It's useful when uninstall is broken (e.g. you get part way through uninstall and for some reason, the uninstall fails and rollsback to the installed state).

If all you need to do is uninstall something that isn't in add/remove programs for some reason, then yes msiexec /x is a better approach.

...

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Setting Permission to the Registry Key
R-Vijay | 15 Oct 2007 | 3 comments

Here's a command you can use to assign permissions to a registry key. You can write this action using VBScript or WiseScript. As this script needs admin privileges to work, run this action in system context in deffered execution.

SetACL.exe -on "hklm\software\microsoft\policies" -ot reg -actn ace
-ace "n:domain1\user1;p:full"

This command sets 'full' permissions on the registry key 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Policies' for user 'user1' in domain 'domain1'.

Cheers'
Vijay Raj

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User Interface Levels
WiseUser | 15 Oct 2007 | 0 comments

Here's a quick primer designed to help you get your head around the UI options in Wise Package Studio. These options can help you pull off installs that range from showing the user the entire installation process to hiding it all and doing an install in "stealth" mode.

Full UI - Displays modal and modeless dialog boxes that have been authored into the internal UI.Modal dialog boxes require user input before the installation can continue.A modeless dialog box does not require user input for the installation to continue.

Reduced UI - Displays any modeless dialog boxes that have been authored into the UI. Does not display any authored modal dialog boxes.

Basic UI - Displays the built-in modeless dialog boxes that show progress messages. Displays built-in...

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Limitations of a Large MSI Package
R-Vijay | 09 Oct 2007 | 5 comments

If your Windows Installer package contains more than 32767 files, you must change the schema of the database to increase the limit of the following columns: the Sequence column of the File table, the LastSequence column of the Media table, and the Sequence column of the Patch table. Note that transforms and patches cannot be created between two packages with different column types.

Total number of components

The maximum number of rows for the Component table is 65536.

Number of components per feature

There is a maximum limit of 1600 components per feature using Windows NT/Windows 2000 and a maximum limit of 800 components per feature using Windows 95 and Windows 98. There will be a ICE47 validation warning if your package is above this limit.

Depth of Feature tree

There is a maximum limit of 16 for the depth of the feature tree. If you exceed this limit you get a runtime error message "2701. The Component table exceeds the acceptable...

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