Misc Questions
Hi, I'm in the process of packaging our applications where I work and I'm stuck on some details. So I would greatly appreciate it if someone could clarify a few things for me. By the way I'm using AdminStudio ZENworks Edition V9.
1- On some project I get the INF files like "oem10.inf", "oem11.inf" etc. So I know that I have to rename these files properly. Otherwise I risk overwriting files on my target computer. But I don't know to do that in Install Shield or Orca?
2- We have the Visual Studio 6 Professional Edition. And since it's very old and there's no more support for it I have decided to only repackage it and push it like that. It seems to be working great in general. But for some reason I seems to always be missing some files that I think should be include in "Merge Modules". But I can't find these "Merge Module". How they work? How to include them in my MSI? Files like MSCOMCTL.ocx.
3- Finally, is it wise to remove, when repackaging an application, any registry keys under HK_Current_User? I also, in Install Shield, remove the "Advertisement" of my different shortcuts. Because I don't want the self healing to always kick in automatically each time someone move a shortcut, for example.
Keep in mind that I'm very new to all of this. So I know that I still have a lot to learn!
Thanks in advance for everything!
1- On some project I get the INF files like "oem10.inf", "oem11.inf" etc. So I know that I have to rename these files properly. Otherwise I risk overwriting files on my target computer. But I don't know to do that in Install Shield or Orca?
2- We have the Visual Studio 6 Professional Edition. And since it's very old and there's no more support for it I have decided to only repackage it and push it like that. It seems to be working great in general. But for some reason I seems to always be missing some files that I think should be include in "Merge Modules". But I can't find these "Merge Module". How they work? How to include them in my MSI? Files like MSCOMCTL.ocx.
3- Finally, is it wise to remove, when repackaging an application, any registry keys under HK_Current_User? I also, in Install Shield, remove the "Advertisement" of my different shortcuts. Because I don't want the self healing to always kick in automatically each time someone move a shortcut, for example.
Keep in mind that I'm very new to all of this. So I know that I still have a lot to learn!
Thanks in advance for everything!
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Posted by:
turbokitty
15 years ago
A recent topic discussed the Zen version of AdminStudio. As far as I can tell, it doesn't come with the Installshield Editor... which is what you need to make any advanced changes to a project.
The Adminstudio help file covers Merge Modules and how you can add your own to the repository.
It's nice if you can delete HKCU keys, but be aware that this may break your application. Test heavily when deleting keys from your project that aren't obvious noise.
The Adminstudio help file covers Merge Modules and how you can add your own to the repository.
It's nice if you can delete HKCU keys, but be aware that this may break your application. Test heavily when deleting keys from your project that aren't obvious noise.
Posted by:
anonymous_9363
15 years ago
I can't find these "Merge Module". How they work? How to include them in my MSI?The two principal MSI authoring tools (Wise and InstallShield) provide old versions of merge modules with their products and have downloadable "updates" (themselves quite elderly).
Simplistically, one could think of MMs as being like DLLs: where DLLs contain libraries of functions, MMs contain libraries of files and registry entries. The idea is that, instead of one's packages containing multiple, similar versions of, say, the Visual C++ runtimes, one decides to use one version and builds the requisite files and registry entries into a MM which gets included in any package requiring the runtime.
There are arguments both ways about MMs. I tend to use them but I do my best to keep them up-to-date (a common reasoning for NOT using is that they're a nuisance to keep them so) and also build new ones as and when required.
The mechanism for using them is pretty straightforward. As you add a file to package, the authoring tool will see that it has a MM in its repository/folder structure for that file and offer to replace the file and its registry entries (if any) for the MM version.
There's a ton of stuff in MSDN, amongst other places, on MMs.
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