Software Deployment

A few question first...

Is Macromedia MX Studio already in the form of an MSI? If so, then you should not be doing snapshots at all, you should be creating transforms.

If this application's native install IS an exe, then are you sure you're capturing any/all logic that might have been in the exe?

Just curious...

- Sean Roberts

Macromedis is an EXE install, and how can I tell if I am capturing everything? surely if I do a before, install the software, register then do an after shot then I would get all changes?

It is about time that software vendors are forced to use MSI in order to gain their windows stripes?

Be careful about assuming that installs are EXEs...

Many installation EXEs are really wrapped-MSIs. You'll really only know by the look and feel of the installation dialogs.

The MSI and related files get put into temp and run from there.

But, if memory serves, Macromedia likes EXE installs, so I think you're right about this one.

As for your capture "getting everything," that's really a matter of how clean your capture machine is and also a matter of how good your capture utility is.

Case in point (and for no logical reason I can determine)... when I do a Wise SetupCapture to a WiseScript (.wse) file, I capture much more than I do if I SetupCapture directly to an MSI - go figure. In fact, sometimes I have to use SysDiff to get things Wise has missed.

Hi all,
I just repackage this soft;
There is a service calling "Macromedia Licensing.exe" that must abslutely be started.
The problem is that the user cannot start himself this service without rights.
The original installation give the rights to this service but with wise ....
So be sure that you have create this service as System Account (so automatic) and ,in wise , start this one before the end of installation.
This will ensure that the user can start MX without restart.

Good Luck !!!

I then used a demo version of adminstudio 5.5 to do a before and after capture. After a bit of tweaking with registry settings I have a 315mb MSI file that deploys OK but when a student logs in and runs a macromedia product, the MSI redeploys taking about 10 minutes, the splash screen appears and nothing happens.

I have repackaged Studio MX, and it is definitely a legacy setup. There are a couple of things to consider:

1. Don't package the whole thing together. Break Studio up into individual components and .msi's.

2. Take all of your HKCU entries and move them into their own features. You can search this site to get more details on what this is all about. MSImaker has provided good explanations and information on why this is a good idea.

Craig --<>.

I am having a problem with Flash MX 2004. All of the other programs work OK with my re-packed MSI except for Flash.

I am getting an error when running the program about not finding the flashresources.dll, but this file exists and is in the correct folder.

Anyone else having a problem deploying Studio MX?

Is it a registration error?

Try using Regsvr32 on the command line to register the DLL and see if it works. If it does, capture the Reg info and add it to the MSI, or self-register the DLL.

One thing to try is to manually fix, so try registering the DLL file and see if that helps, if so then add a custom action to your MSI that registers the DLL.

sorry for the double post, just going through my inbox and didn't read further...

I had a lot of these same problems with StudioMX:

1) Turn off Smart Monitor, if you have it. It'll screw things up and put in a lot of cruft.
2) Macromedia support told me that Power User is needed to run Flash. Forget about making it run as a user - too many problems.

I have currently got the same issue when trying to package this product using admin studio, I have tried a statc scan and manually adding files that see to be left out and then registering the flashresources.dll again but the same problem keeps happening... Has anyone been ble to paskage this successfuly???

Cheers for the tips all.

I have gone with packaging one app at a time, and it seems to be working OK.

One question.

Does anyone know how I can disable the Activation/Registration/License transfer features so they cannot be clicked by the end users?

read following link this is how I built it and worked just fine deployed thru altiris software delivery task

http://www.appdeploy.com/packages/detail.asp?id=605

As mentioned, we simply broke up the installs and extracted each program seperately from the main 2004 mx disc.

They were all isntallshield installers iirc and deployed with ease using sms isntaller scripts.

Little trick we did was to have an ini file with machine names and corresponding licenses in and the package finds the current machine name in the ini file and then adds the appropriate license. If the machine name isn't in the file (and hence doesn't have a license) the isntaller pops up a message and exits.