InstallShield AdminStudio Evaluator s Guide

Transcription

1 InstallShield AdminStudio Evaluator s Guide Published: April 2003 Abstract This guide helps system administrators and other reviewers evaluate the key functionality of InstallShield AdminStudio. It provides instructions for executing a complete application repackaging and conflict resolution process, as well as descriptions of the product itself and support resources available to evaluators.

2 Contents InstallShield AdminStudio Evaluator s Guide... 1 Contents... 2 Introduction... 3 Help and Support Resources... 3 System Requirements... 4 Evaluator s Guide Contents... 4 AdminStudio Integrated Development Environment (IDE)... 5 Connecting to the Application Catalog... 6 AdminStudio Functionality... 7 Installing AdminStudio and Preparing for Repackaging... 7 Preparing for Repackaging... 8 Repackaging a Legacy Installation into MSI Format... 9 Converting the Repackager Project to a Developer Project...14 Editing an MSI Project...16 Deleting a Desktop Shortcut...16 Adding Asset Tracking Information to the Registry...17 Building and Validating a Project...18 Resolving Conflicts Between Multiple Applications...20 Organizing Applications into Groups...20 Importing an OS Image and New Application Package...21 Detecting and Resolving Conflicts...24 Where Do I Go From Here?...30 Tuner...30 QualityMonitor...30 OS Snapshot Wizard...30 Global Exclusions Editor...31 Application Isolation Wizard...31 Distribution Wizard InstallShield Software Corporation. All Rights Reserved. This white paper is being furnished by InstallShield Software Corporation for information purposes only and is furnished on an AS IS basis, that is, without any warranties, whatsoever, express or implied. InstallShield and AdminStudio are registered trademarks and service marks of InstallShield Corporation. Other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective holders. Microsoft Windows and Windows NT are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent any commitment on the part of InstallShield Software Corporation. The software described in this document is furnished under a license agreement. The software may be used only in accordance with the terms of that license agreement. It is against the law to copy or use the software except as specifically allowed in the license. No part of this document may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means, whether electronically or mechanically, including, but not limited to the way of: photocopying, recording, or information recording and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of InstallShield Software Corporation. 2

3 Introduction Welcome to the InstallShield AdminStudio Evaluator s Guide. This guide is designed to make your evaluation process as easy and efficient as possible by providing the following information: Help and support resources available to you during your evaluation process A description of the contents of the AdminStudio Evaluator s Guide An overview of the AdminStudio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Detailed instructions for evaluating the key functionality of AdminStudio To provide feedback on this guide, or any aspect of the AdminStudio documentation or product, click here to visit our online feedback form. Help and Support Resources AdminStudio comes complete with a detailed, accurate Help Library that covers every aspect of application repackaging and setup development. Help is accessible any time you are using the product by pressing F1, clicking the Help icon on the toolbar Help menu., or selecting an option from the Additionally, InstallShield offers a number of excellent online resources to aid you during your evaluation process: AdminStudio Support Central A great source for answers to all of your questions: read the latest news from InstallShield, search our extensive knowledge base, communicate with other InstallShield users via our online community, or even provide feedback. Knowledge Base Includes answers to many commonly asked questions and new information about AdminStudio that may not appear in the documentation. InstallShield Community forums In these forums, system administrators like you share tips and ideas and help each other get the most out of AdminStudio. You can also contact one of our AdminStudio Product Consultants directly via at saminfo@installshield.com or by phone at or

4 Note that optimal use of AdminStudio would require a separate machine or virtual machine with the golden image of your target desktop for repackaging purposes. System Requirements For optimal performance, we recommend you run AdminStudio on a system that meets the following requirements: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0 (Intel) SP6 and above, Windows 2000, or Windows XP Administrative privileges on the system Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 5.0 or higher Pentium III or higher PC (300 MHz or higher recommended) 256 MB RAM Super VGA monitor with 800x600 resolution, 256 colors (XGA or better recommended) 900 MB free disk space before installation (application uses 280 MB disk space once installed) Evaluator s Guide Contents The AdminStudio Evaluator s Guide includes everything you need to go through the process of repackaging an application. By default, the eval guide will be installed in its own folder (AdminStudio 5 Evaluation Guide) located in the InstallShield subfolder under the Program Files directory. If, by chance, you have downloaded this document without the entire Evaluator s Guide setup, you can download the setup from the InstallShield Download Center ( in the Evaluation Copy category. After you run the Evaluator s Guide setup, this document is located in the main Evaluation Guide directory. The setup additionally installed the following contents: Production.mdb the Application Catalog you can use for evaluation of AdminStudio s conflict detection and resolution functionality. Legacy Setup folder Includes the PackageForTheWeb.exe application to be used for evaluation of repackaging and MSI editing functionality. Note that this is fully licensed and redistributable, so long as you accept the licensing agreement during the installation. W2K OS Snapshot folder Includes a full snapshot of a sample Windows 2000 operating system for evaluation of OS import and conflict detection and resolution functionality 4

5 AdminStudio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) The AdminStudio IDE makes it simple to learn about and use the tools necessary for all of your application repackaging and migration projects. When you launch AdminStudio, it will display the Start tab, as shown below: Figure 1: The AdminStudio IDE Tools Gallery Double-click any icon to launch the appropriate tool. Single-click any icon to bring up helpful information about the tool in the content pane. You can also add tools to the gallery by rightclicking on the window and selecting Add Tool. Content Pane Includes the QuickStart Guide. Mouse over any of the questions to see the AdminStudio tool that provides the solution to these common needs. Tabs The AdminStudio IDE consists of three tabbed pages. In addition to the Start tab, it also includes: o Workflows: Allows you to design, plan, and organize your application repackaging projects by creating workflows. o Projects: Allows you to create projects based on your workflows, so you can track your progress, checking off tasks as you complete them. QuickStart Guide This helpful guide provides overviews of the key concepts and tools used in a comprehensive application migration project. 5

6 Connecting to the Application Catalog When you first launch AdminStudio, you are automatically connected to the sample Application Catalog, which contains workflow and ConflictSolver information. For purposes of this evaluation, you need to connect to the Production.mdb Application Catalog included in the setup that installed this evaluation guide. To do so: 1. From the Catalog menu, select Connect. 2. When the Connect to Application Catalog dialog is displayed, click the Existing tab. Figure 2: The Connect to Application Catalog dialog 3. Select Microsoft Access as the database type and click the Browse button ( ) to display the Open dialog. You can then browse to Production.mdb. It should be located in the C:\Program Files\InstallShield\AdminStudio 5 Evaluation Guide\ConflictSolver directory. When you have located and selected it, click Open. 6

7 4. When you return to the Connect to Application Catalog dialog, the name and location of the Application Catalog is displayed in the field below the Microsoft Access Option. Check the option Make this the default shared Application Catalog at the bottom of the dialog. This will allow you to automatically log into the Production.mdb Application Catalog when you later use ConflictSolver. Figure 3: Completed Connect to Application Catalog dialog 5. Click Open. AdminStudio Functionality As the world s premier Windows Installer packaging, customization, and conflict resolution system, AdminStudio is not only reliable and scalable, but also easy to learn and use. By following the instructions below, you will walk through a sample application migration. You ll get an introduction to key AdminStudio features and see for yourself how simple it makes this process. The process involves the following steps: 1. Installing AdminStudio and Preparing for Repackaging 2. Repackaging a Legacy Application into MSI Format 3. Converting the Repackager Project to a Developer Project 4. Editing an MSI Package 5. Resolving Conflicts Between Multiple Applications Installing AdminStudio and Preparing for Repackaging If you haven t already, you can register to download the Evaluation Copy by clicking this link. The download instructions and password will be ed to the address you enter in the evaluation request form. You can also download the entire Evaluation Guide setup from the InstallShield Download Center ( in the Evaluation Copy category (if you haven t done so already). 7

8 Note that both the download and installation of AdminStudio can take some time, depending on the speed of your Internet connection and development system. For simplicity during the evaluation process, we recommend that you simply accept the default values in the installation dialogs. Preparing for Repackaging In most cases, production repackaging is performed on a clean machine with a copy of the target OS environment installed on it. The administrator performing the repackaging would share the Repackager folder (typically C:\Program Files\InstallShield\AdminStudio\5.0\Repackager), and then launch islc.exe remotely from the clean machine. Once Repackager has launched, you can access the Repackaging Wizard from the Repackager Start page. Following using the Repackaging Wizard, you can use Repackager from your development machine to convert the output into an MSI file. For this example, we re assuming you don t have a clean system (for simplicity s sake), so we recommend you ensure that no applications are running before launching Repackager. Be sure to shut down any antivirus programs, screen saver utilities, or other programs that run automatically in the background. Of course, to avoid this extra work, and to create as accurate an evaluation experience as possible, we strongly recommend in production you either use a clean machine or create a virtual machine with a tool such as VMware. 8

9 Repackaging a Legacy Installation into MSI Format The first step in repackaging an application is to run the Repackaging Wizard and let it run the application s installation to capture the information from the legacy setup into MSI format. Follow the steps in Preparing for Repackaging, then launch Repackager from the AdminStudio Tools Gallery. Once Repackager is running, you need to launch the Repackaging Wizard from the Welcome to InstallShield Repackager page. Figure 4: The Welcome to InstallShield Repackager page The Repackaging Wizard provides a wizard-based interface that guides you through the Repackaging process. Simply follow the steps below to repackage PackageForTheWeb: 1. You will be greeted with the Welcome panel. Click Next to continue to the Method Selection panel. 9

10 2. The Method Selection panel allows you to choose between Installation Monitoring and Snapshot: Figure 5: The Method Selection panel Using Installation Monitoring, Repackager watches system activity to record the changes during the setup. We recommend you select this option, which is faster and more accurate than Snapshot. Snapshot is the classic method of capturing installation information, creating the package from the deltas between the pre- and post-setup system snapshots. If you are running on Windows 9x or ME, you must use Snapshot, so this dialog will not be displayed. 3. After selecting the repackaging method, you need to enter information about the application in the Collect Product Information panel. i. Use the Browse ( ) button to select PackageForTheWeb.exe in the Program File field. The file is located in the Legacy Setup subdirectory of your AdminStudio Eval Guide installation folder. ii. iii. Leave the Command-line Argument(s) field blank. Note that you can click the Additional Setup Programs button in this panel to chain multiple installations into a single MSI file. However, for the purposes of this exercise we will only be using one setup. iv. The Product Information fields will be populated automatically from the.exe version information. v. The Product URL and Support URL entries will be used in the Add or Remove Programs applet. You will be able to edit them later, if you want. 10

11 When completed, the panel will appear as below. Figure 6: Completed Collect Product Information panel 4. The Set Target Location and Capture Settings panel allows you to specify where you would like the output files created by Repackager to be placed. We recommend you create an application specific sub-folder to the default location, such as: C:\Packages\PackageForTheWeb. Figure 7: Completed Set Target Project panel 11

12 You can also click Edit from this panel to review or modify the types of data AdminStudio captures. This includes files, INI file changes, registry data, and shortcuts. For evaluation purposes, we recommend you accept the default settings and click Start to begin the repackaging process. 5. After you start the repackaging, Repackager will provide you with feedback throughout the process. If you have selected Monitoring, it will run in the background while the installation(s) are launched. If you chose Snapshot, it will first analyze the system, then launch the setup program(s). Do not select to launch PackageForTheWeb, or any other program, at the end of the setup. Any changes the application makes to the system would be captured by the Repackaging Wizard and included in the project. Figure 8: Repackager will launch the installation(s) automatically after starting the monitoring process or taking the system snapshot. During the setup, accept the default selections unless you have a specific folder where you want to have the application installed. Once the installation is complete, AdminStudio allows you to make manual changes to the system that will get captured in the initial Windows Installer project created by Repackager. This lets you include organization-specific changes in the generated MSI package. 12

13 Figure 9: AdminStudio allows you the opportunity to make additional changes to the target system before repackaging the setup. When you have made these changes, click Process to generate the Repackager project. The final panel in AdminStudio Repackager is the Summary panel: Figure 10: The Summary panel, shown after repackaging on a clean machine 13

14 When you click Finish, the Repackaging Wizard exits and the project is opened in Repackager. Note that, in this example, we have used the ProgramFilesFolder property. At setup run time, the installer sets this property to the location of the Program Files folder on the target system. Converting the Repackager Project to a Developer Project Once the Repackaging Wizard has finished, the captured data is converted into a Repackager project file (.irp). Repackager can also import projects from SMS Installer (.ipf), Novell ZENworks (.axt), WinINSTALL (exported.txt file), or Wise Installer (.wse). Within Repackager, you can view the captured data, and selectively exclude information unnecessary to the final package. You can also convert the package to an InstallShield Developer project (.ism) and Windows Installer package (.msi). Follow the steps below to convert your Repackager project to a Developer project: 1. Click the Captured Installation view. This view contains a summary of data captured when you ran the Repackaging Wizard. Ensure the value for the original target folder is [ProgramFilesFolder]\InstallShield Software Corporation\PackageForTheWeb 4. Figure 11: Repackager s Captured Installation view 14

15 2. Click the Package Information view, which allows you to modify product information created during the repackaging. The fields in this view will be pre-populated with data from your repackaged application, as shown below: Figure 12: The Package Information view 3. Click the Repackaged Output view. If necessary, change the value of the Developer project field to C:\Packages\PackageForTheWeb\PackageForTheWeb 4.ism. Figure 13: The Repackaged Output view 4. You can specify whether you would like to immediately build your MSI files. You can also specify whether you want to create a setup.exe file to launch the installation and/or include compressed data files within your MSI package. 15

16 5. Click Build to build the Repackager project into a Developer project and Windows Installer package. Congratulations you have converted your legacy setup into an MSI project. To continue with the evaluation process, click Edit the Developer project under Repackaged Output Tasks. Figure 14: You can launch the Developer project directly from the Repackaged Output Tasks section after building the project. Editing an MSI Project AdminStudio comes complete with InstallShield Developer, the most powerful and flexible setup authoring solution. Although the number of options it offers may seem confusing at first, Developer actually makes common project modifications extremely simple. To demonstrate just how easy it is to use, the steps below will guide you through the following processes: Deleting a Desktop Shortcut Adding Asset Tracking Information to the Registry Building and Validating a Project Deleting a Desktop Shortcut Many applications install shortcuts on the Desktop by default. However, most organizations would prefer not to clutter corporate desktops with too many icons. Consequently, a common repackaging task is deleting this shortcut from the MSI package. 16

17 To accomplish this in Developer, follow these steps: 1. Select the Shortcuts view, located under System Configuration: Note that the PackageForTheWeb installation you repackaged also includes a shortcut under Programs Menu. If you needed to add one or more folders and a shortcut under the Programs Menu, these tasks are also easily accomplished using the right-click menu. Figure 15: The Shortcuts view allows you to easily add, delete, and modify shortcuts. 2. Expand the Desktop node under [ALLUSERSPROFILE] to reveal the PackageForTheWeb shortcut. 3. Right-click on PackageForTheWeb and select Delete. Adding Asset Tracking Information to the Registry Often, an enterprise packaging team will want to add information to the registry to indicate that their group had repackaged the application(s) in question. This information can be stored in a template, which becomes the base for the team s repackaging projects. Follow the steps below to create a custom registry key and include this information with the MSI package: 1. Select the Setup Design view, under Organization. 2. In the content pane, right-click on Setup Design and select New Feature. A feature is the highest-level building block of your application, generally representing a specific capability. Because we are creating company-specific data, give the new feature a company-specific name (note that the name cannot have any spaces). 3. Right-click on this feature and select New Component. Components are groups of related resources (files, registry entries, etc.) that can be combined to create features. Name this component AssetRegData. 4. Expand the AssetRegData node to reveal the resource views. Click on Registry Data. 17

18 If you are part of a group repackaging effort, you will want to make sure everyone is creating the company name exactly the same way to consolidate your cross-application asset tracking. 5. In the Destination computer s Registry view pane, right-click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, point to New, and select Key. Name this key Software. 6. Right-click on Software and create a sub-key. Give it the name of your company. 7. Right-click on your newly created company key and create another sub-key. Enter [ProductName] [ProductVersion] as the name, as shown in Figure 16. ProductName and ProductVersion are Windows Installer properties that can be checked and modified in the Property Manager view, located under Organize Your Setup. 8. Right-click on the [ProductName] [ProductVersion] key and select Install if absent, Uninstall if present. This helps Windows Installer correctly interpret this registry key during installation. Figure 16: Use Windows Installer Properties to create registry keys that are easily maintainable and portable. Another great feature of the Developer Setup Design is that you can drag and drop keys and values from the Source computer s Registry view into the Destination view and quickly add them to your Windows Installer project. Building and Validating a Project Once you have completed your modifications, click the Build icon on the toolbar or select Build Release1 from the Build menu to create your MSI package. Your project will be built according to default specifications. A log of the processes will be displayed in the Build window. Note that AdminStudio allows a wide variety of build and release options, such as being able to compress files inside the.msi file itself or create an external.cab file, create builds specifically for CD or Web distribution, etc. Once you have built your MSI package, you can now validate it against a set of internal consistency evaluator (ICE) rules. These ICEs are designed 18

19 by Microsoft to ensure that your resulting setup package contains a valid database that performs its actions correctly. Select Validate from the Build menu to display the Validate submenu. AdminStudio includes three different types of validation: Full MSI Validation Suite Scans your project to ensure all aspects of it are valid. Windows 2000 Logo Validation Suite Scans your project to ensure is meets the criteria for Microsoft Windows 2000 Logo certification. Merge Module Validation Suite Similar to Full MSI Validation Suite, but only enabled for merge module projects. Select the Full MSI Validation Suite. Developer may display Warnings in the Validate window at the bottom of the IDE. Warnings are frequently not the result of critical issues that will cause the installation to fail, but rather the result of taking a legacy setup format and placing it in the MSI format. For example, MSI doesn t support creating file extension associations to an EXE file that has already been installed via the Extension table. Of greater concern would be any Errors, which describe problems with your setup database, such as having duplicate component GUIDS, or Failures, which occur when your database has severe enough problems that the validation tool itself might not be able to run. Since your package does not generate any Errors or Failures, you can then proceed to ConflictSolver to check for conflicts with other applications and a base OS image. 19

20 Resolving Conflicts Between Multiple Applications Now that you ve repackaged, modified, and validated your MSI package, launch ConflictSolver from the Tools Gallery. The Production.mdb Application Catalog includes MSI files for DemoShield, InstallShield Tuner, McAfee VirusScan, and Microsoft Office. Note that these are not full distribution packages, just MSI files included so that you can get familiar with the conflict resolution process. Figure 17: Production.mdb includes sample MSI packages. Organizing Applications into Groups In order to simplify the conflict detection and resolution processes, AdminStudio allows you to organize your applications into groups. Groups could be categorized based on factors such as geographic location, business unit, function, or operating system. Groups let you check applications against only the other applications or target systems that it will be deployed with. You can create multi-level groups based on an appropriate hierarchy for your enterprise for example, you might have a group for Chicago/Accounting/Management that includes only those applications used by accounting managers in your Chicago office. The Products window supports standard tree control functionality, such as drag-and-drop. You can use Copy and Paste or Ctrl+drag to include an application in multiple groups. 20

21 For evaluation purposes, start by creating new groups: 1. Right-click on the Group folder icon and select New Group. 2. Name this group Marketing. 3. Repeat and create groups called Accounting, Core Image, and Test Repository (this group would be used for applications that are ready for testing but not yet assigned to a department). 4. Drag and drop to move DemoShield into the Marketing group, VirusScan and Office into Core Image, and Tuner to Accounting. AdminStudio makes it easy to take snapshots of your target operating system using the OS Snapshot Wizard. We have included a sample OS snapshot in order to save you time during your evaluation process. Figure 18: Drag and drop the sample applications into the groups you ve created. Importing an OS Image and New Application Package Now that the existing applications have been grouped, you can import the sample OS image and your newly created PackageForTheWeb package: 1. Right-click on Core Image and select Import OS Snapshot. 2. Click the Browse button and navigate to Windows2000.osc, which will be located in the W2K OS Snapshot folder of your AdminStudio Eval Guide installation. 3. Select the file and click Next. 21

22 Figure 19: Select the sample OS image from the W2K OS Snapshot folder. 4. A summary panel will be displayed. Click Finish to begin the import. The process will take a few minutes, dependent, of course, on the speed of your computer. 5. Once the OS import is complete, right-click on Test Repository and select Import Installer Package. 6. Click the browse button and navigate to PackageForTheWeb.msi. Figure 20: Completed MSI Source Information panel 22

23 7. A summary panel will be displayed. Click Finish to complete the import. Once the package has been imported, ConflictSolver will track any changes to the source MSI. You can try this out by making a superficial change to the source file: Using Windows Explorer, browse to the PackageForTheWeb.msi file. Right-click on the file and select Properties. Click on the Summary tab. Enter your name in the Author field. Figure 21: Change the Author in the Summary tab. When you return to ConflictSolver and refresh the node, you will notice that the icon for PackageForTheWeb.msi now includes a? indicating that the source file has changed. There will also be a blue link in the Product View that you can click on to easily import the updated version. 23

24 Figure 22: Click the blue link to re-import the changed file. Detecting and Resolving Conflicts AdminStudio allows you to automatically detect and resolve many common application conflicts. Follow the steps below to detect and resolve conflicts between PackageForTheWeb.msi and your sample core image. 1. Launch the Conflict Wizard by using the toolbar button, pressing the F5 key, or selecting it from the Conflicts menu. Click Next in the Welcome panel. Figure 23: The Conflict Wizard Welcome panel 24

25 2. You have already imported the package, so select Internal Windows Installer package in the Source Type panel. Figure 24: Select Internal Windows Installer package to check for conflicts between packages already in ConflictSolver. 3. In the Source Package panel, select PackageForTheWeb from the Test Repository group and click Next. Figure 25: Select PackageForTheWeb 4 as the source package 4. For the purposes of this exercise, we ll assume that PackageForTheWeb is going to be distributed to the Marketing and Core Image groups, but not Accounting. In the Target Information 25

26 panel, select the groups and products accordingly, as shown below: Figure 26: PackageForTheWeb.msi will only be compared against the applications in the Core Image and Marketing groups. 5. The Conflict Options panel allows you to specify what types of conflicts you want to check for. You can also select to automatically run any pre-built resolutions and/or generate conflict reports. For the purposes of this evaluation, accept the default selections of Files and INI Files, then click Next. Figure 27: The Conflict Options panel provides you the flexibility to choose what types of conflicts you would like to detect. 26

27 6. A Summary panel will be displayed showing the details of your selections. Click Finish to run the resolution detection process. Figure 28: Conflict Wizard s Summary panel 7. A log of the process will be displayed in the Conflicts window at the bottom of ConflictSolver. You should receive an ACE07 error. This is because the provided packages include two files which would be copied to the same target location, but have different component GUIDs (GUIDs are critical for reference counting shared files in Windows Installer). When conflict detection concludes, the Product view for PackageForTheWeb 4 is displayed again. Figure 29: PackageForTheWeb 4 s Product view 27

28 8. Click the Conflict Results link to display the Conflicts view for PackageForTheWeb 4. Figure 30: PackageForTheWeb 4 s Conflicts view From this view, you can see summary information for package conflicts, including when conflict detection was last run, how many products it was run against, how many ACEs were used, and the current resolution options. Figure 31: Save resolutions for repackaged applications to the MSI package. 9. Click Edit under Resolution Options. Because this is a repackaged application, select to make the changes in the MSI. If this were a third-party application, you d want to save the changes as a transform so as to not compromise the supported MSI package. Click OK to dismiss the dialog. 10. Change the Conflict Information filter to File Conflicts. Here, you can see the ACE07 conflict that was detected, and the package against which the conflict was generated. 28

29 Figure 32: Examining the identified conflict 11. Click Resolve All to resolve the conflict. Figure 33: The conflict has been resolved. 12. Click the PackageForTheWeb Product View to see the updated data. Notice that ConflictSolver has detected a change in the package resulting from resolving the conflict. You can now reimport the package into ConflictSolver. 29

30 Figure 34: You can now re-import the corrected package. Where Do I Go From Here? As the most complete application migration system available, AdminStudio includes a wide variety of capabilities not covered in this evaluation exercise. Listed below are some of the other tools you may want to look at if you are conducting a more comprehensive evaluation of our product. Tuner Tuner allows you to quickly and easily customize Windows Installer packages to meet your organization's needs without modifying the base MSI package. It does so by creating transforms (MST files), which are applied to the installation at the time of deployment. Transforms are especially valuable because they let you make needed changes without making changes to third-party MSIs, which can violate licensing and service agreements. Some of the modifications you can make using Tuner include limiting the features installed, adding custom files to the installation, and setting property values. You can also make multiple customizations from the same base setup, drastically reducing the time to deployment. QualityMonitor QualityMonitor provides a way to test repackaged setups to ensure all functionality works as expected prior to deploying the setup to your organization. This includes a series of tests that simulate a lockeddown environment, allowing you to discover potential problems in registry and file access. OS Snapshot Wizard The OS Snapshot Wizard provides a simple way to capture your basic operating system configuration. You can import this snapshot into ConflictSolver to identify potential conflicts between Windows Installerbased setups and your operating system. 30

31 To provide maximum flexibility during the OS Snapshot process, you can create an exclusion list (similar to the Repackager exclusion list) that identifies files, INI files, shortcuts, and registry entries that the OS Snapshot Wizard should ignore during the scan. Using this list, you can eliminate unnecessary files, shortcuts, or registry entries, and reduce the time it takes to perform the OS Snapshot. Also, if you capture OS Snapshots often with the same configuration, you can store the options in an INI file and reuse them. Global Exclusions Editor The Global Exclusions Editor lets you configure pre-capture exclusions for the Repackaging Wizard and OS Snapshot Wizard. It also allows you to define a default set of exclusions to use in Repackager postcapture. Output is saved in an INI file, which can be specified in the Global Exclusions tab in the Project Properties dialog in Repackager. Application Isolation Wizard In order to avoid DLL Hell, you can use the Application Isolation Wizard to isolate individual components within a Windows Installer package using Win32 assemblies. Isolation ensures that applications always use the specific shared and support files with which they were installed. Application isolation also prevents subsequent installations from overwriting the files required by the application you are repackaging. The Application Isolation Wizard allows you to partially or totally isolate the application. Distribution Wizard Use the Distribution Wizard to deploy your setup package (including necessary files and transforms) to a network location, FTP server, or as an administrative install. You can also configure publishing options using Marimba channels, or via Tivoli. The Administrative Installation distribution option uses Windows Installer to create an uncompressed version of your setup on a network location. This is the recommended distribution method when making your installation available on a network. You can also upload it to an FTP server by specifying a location such as "ftp://severname/directory" and providing a username and password. 31