Software Deployment

The local cached copy of the MSI is stripped of files (and other things, I belive) to conserve space. It's just enough to know if a self-repair is necessary. Actually doing the repair would require access to the original MSI, but it doesn't necessarily need to be in its original location.

This can be addressed by populating the SOURCELIST property (before installation) with a list of places to look for the original MSI. You might be able to specify this through MSIEXEC at the time of repair, if not done on installation, but I haven't tried it. It should have all the info it needs, but again I've never seen it attempted. The command line would be:

MSIEXEC /fv [ProductCode] SOURCELIST="[FullPathToMSI]"

See MSIEXEC /? for all repair options, which immediately follow the /f. You may want to add more than /fv.

It all depends how you set things up, what distribution software you are using, you can also build a solution that automatic repairs the application if that is not done for that user earlier. Everything is possible, but think of that the solution you are choosing doesn’t have to be perfect? - Or? It all end up with the business need. Maybe the default solution is "good enough"
/Göran

If you are using Wise package studio you can go to windows installer Editor-->System search and add your source list there ( \\servername\share name). This is hard coded to the package which i am not a big fan of.

You can also add the source list in the registry using a script to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Products\9040150900063D11C8EF10054038389C\SourceList]

I believe you can add up to 28 source list here.

For scalability you really want ANY self repair to happen on the network that installed the msi to start with. This ensures that your users are getting EXACTLY what they are expecting and also takes the whole source location dramas away from the support team.

In our environment if a user says that they got an error during self repair, then the helpdesk ALWAYS tells them to make sure they are on a LAN port and try again. This ensures that the user gets the msi from our DFS links and gives us a solid base to troubleshoot from if they have issues.

Manually installing to save time is strictly forbidden.

While it isnt always pretty for the user it saves us lots of headaches later on. Work from rock ...not sand. You will be surprised how easy support becomes for users when you do.