Software Deployment

Hi All,

I've been tasked with scripting an upgrade for Lotus Notes. Being that it's a windows installer patch file, I just added the appropriate switches to MSIEXEC and voila, scripted and working.

Until now. We have a group of users where Windows Installer starts, a progress bar goes, then then it aborts. The log is empty. So, in troubleshooting, I run the MSP by hand on a few of these. I noticed that it doesn't like the original MSI file location that's sitting up on the server. Hmm, odd.

I spoke with the original deployment team, and apparently half way through the deployment, they changed their source MSI file. They're both the same version (6.5.1), but I guess they got one from somewhere else than the first one. I looked at the GUIDs in the MSI files and they match, so I figure it should still work - but it doesn't.

I setup a folder on the server like this:

Notes_Client\
|----> File: Notes651.msi
|----> Folder: TestCD
|-----> Notes651.msi

These two files are the same size, date, GUID, and everything. When I run the MSP manually, and it wants an MSI file, I point it to the first one, it'll fail, then I'll point it to the other one, and it works. This is the case on my test box. On other machines, I point it at the second ("test") one and it works, but the original fails.

Where's the difference in these two files? When the problem was described to me, I thought at least the file version or GUID would certainly be different, but they're not - so I can't tell what's what and who got which one --- and why it even matters since they, I would think, be the same.

Chris.