admin install

FLEXnet AdminStudio launched!

2005-09-28T21:53:00.000-07:00

Macrovision launched FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.0 today. This is first major release of AdminStudio in last one year and also the first release of AdminStudio since Macrovision aquired InstallShield.
The highlights of FLEXnet AdminStudion are Web based tools, Predeployment Patch Testing & Enhanced Automation capabilities.
We will be carrying an in-depth review of FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.0 soon, so keep checking this space.

Technorati tag: AdminStudio

AdminStudio Assistant

2005-07-18T20:19:00.000-07:00

this post takes a look at one of the changing design feature in AdminStudio 6.0. what i have seen in the industry, usually the entire workflow in this domain is done across different teams. there are different teams for repackaging, different teams for customizing/editing the msi, admins somewhere else to distribute the package. now this increases the tco of the complete process as it involves training on different tools that existed in releases prior to 6.0.
introduce the process assistant. it lets a single user walk through the entire process under one application umbrella. teams can still be distibuted, but all the work is now under one umbrella. the assistant leads you through the logical steps from repackaging to distribution. applications are still different, but they are knit together tightly by the assistant.
users can start by selecting an existing legacy setup.exe, and the assistant detects the best possible steps for you to follow to get a converted windows installer package. once you are past the package step, you are given a chance to customize your package (using InstallShield Editor) so that you can add your customizations in the msi package. once you have your baseline msi package ready, you can run it for conflicts against another set of windows installer packages using the ConflictSolver conflict wizard.further down the process chain, you can test your conflicts free package using InstallShield QualityMonitor, which is capable of running some tests on the deployed behaviour of the package and check for issues related to ClassID's ProgIDs etc. also in a team, you can add your own tests that can be tagged in with the package. once tested, the assistant launches distribution wizard, with your msi package as a parameter, allowing you to select one of the many distribution channels supported by Distribution Wizard.
Effect? All the processes which were once loosely coupled (if they were at all) are now tied together under one umbrella: the helpful assistant. the new start page of AdminStudio also keeps tracks of the application history including what steps they were in during last exit, and moves to that step when a file is selected.
more on InstallShield Repackager in next post.

InstallShield AdminStudio

2005-07-17T09:14:00.000-07:00

this is one of the tools that most of the admins are familiar with. AdminStudio from InstallShield (A Macrovision company) gives admins and repackaging teams the fastest way to start from repackaging legacy installers, to deploying windows installer packages across the enterprise. in between, the admins can test the packages for quality and installation impact.
more detail on this to come in next post.
windows installer

admin installations

2005-07-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

admin installations is platform to discuss the tools used by administrators to work with windows installer based packages.
technorati tags: install,windows installer