Software Deployment

I have Orca, but I don't know what to do

you mean to say that your client / organisation has not provided you proper packaging tools and you just use Orca for everything (Its not impossible to do it with Orca, however as someone said that using Orca is like coding the whole MS website using Notepad). I suggest you use Wise Package Studio or Flexera Installshield (or any other decent packaging tool as it will help you out and will save you lotta time).

I'm new to editing MSI files
ona different note, its not a good idea to directly edit the vendor msi, instead you need to create a transform to add your SERIALNUMBER/LICENSEKEY properties into the Property Table.

Pull down a copy of Phil Wilson's ouvre, The Definitive Guide to Windows Installer. That's a good starter.If you search AppDeploy for that title, you'll turn up other posts which contain useful links, such as John McFadyen's Windows Live blog and Ed Tippelt's articles.

Someone recommended WPKG. Is it worth using? We are a small business, and I'm the only IT person. Nearly everything is self-learned, so I appreciate the guidance. I will read the resources you listed and post back with more questions. So should I not attempt to learn or use Orca at all? Thank you both.

I don't know WPKG, other than that it's an open source deployment tool. As such, support will likely be patchy to non-existent. For deployment, you would probably be better off using Group Policy. It's free and well documented, plus there is a dedicated GP forum here on AppDeploy if you have questions on its usage.

We had pushed OmniForms out via GPO, it worked fine until we migrated all our workstations to a new domain and that killed all functionality for OmniForms. I found that it modified the permissions on required registry entries, files and folders. In order to get it working again i have had to delete ALL "OmniForm" entries in the registry and file system before attempting a manual re-install.

The registry entries are not removed when the software is uninstalled, so removing the software for the migration also did not help.

I still have a number of Windows XP computers to 'repair' with this old software. I am still open to alternatives! :)

wth? why are you replying to a post more than a year old? do you have a question?

if so, create a new post.

it modified the permissions on required registry entries, files and foldersEr...why not simply remove the permissions it had applied and apply new ones? A simple script running SetACL would suffice.

No question, just didn't look at the date. Wanted to offer up my experience in case it helped the original situation. sorry to confuse.