Software Deployment

I think WISE STUDIO is a very good tool to use. Don't know about the market share but I know Outsourcing coys. prefer AdminStudio as they can use it without having to pay royalty to Macrovision for different client's projects they work on. The opposite is the case for Wise Studio.

The feeling I get from these boards is that Wise has a very large part of the market, it also seems to be used more by users with very good scripting abilities and developers. I am not a programmer, I do some scripting, but very little, I have been using Adminstudio and I find it much easier to use than Wise. Just my $0.02.

Having recently moved onsite with a client i had to use wise, as i had been using adminstudio for so long i was worried but found wise to have improved immesurably.
Also a quick glance at packaging jobs on www.jobserve.co.uk shows that wise seems to be the more widespread. It is always good to keep up to date with both of them as you may not be able to package some apps completely with wise and vice-versa.
Good luck!

If you're repackaging software, you should use Wise.

Why? I use Administudio every day, I repackage software a lot, I create tons of new installs, I create tons of Transforms. I only seem to run into problems with Apps that no one can seem to repackage with any software repckager. I think saying that you "should use wise" is very biased statement. I think a realy piece of software should be used, one that specializes in what you are doing, Personally I find that Wininstall LE works great for quick repackaging tasks (as long as you have a better editor to clean it up after), Adminstudio is also great, and I have heard nothing but good things about Wise.

I have been using WinInstall for quite a while (having used the LE version before).

Went to a seminar in London about Wise.. and was very impressed.

My bosses are happy to buy whichever product I recommend, I just wanted to make sure I picked the one which was more popular.. so if i did ever want to leave, I would have the more marketable skills :)

Isn't that selfish of you... :)

Good thinking though.

I thought the guy was asking for the "opinion" of fellow professionals. My opinion is just one amongst many, but I gave him it honestly and for free. If he or anyone else doesn't like my opinion, they are perfectly free to ignore it.

If he wants to know the pros and cons of the Wise and Installshield products, the information is out there on the net. He can play around with the evaluation versions and form his own opinion too.

Orca can be a great tool too, and I quite like manipulating MSI files using VBScript and automation, but I understood the question to be related to software repackaging in a corporate environment. If so, I stand by my recommendation - Wise.

Well I have been using Wise since version 3 and I'm now on version 5.1

I have evaluated alot of products over the last few years and its hard to pick between Adminstudio and Wise because they both have similar feature sets.

My only critisism of Admin Studio is that its packages need to install the IS script engine in order to take advantage of extra features. This script engine has been known to become broken or corrupted in some cases and this causes alot of problems.

Technically if want to produce "pure" msi packages you should use Orca.

If you want to evaluate both products properly then I know that both companies are happy to provide you with a web based netmeeting and show you the products in full operation. I have attended both and they are very impressive and can answer your questions on the spot and provide you with instant feedback to your enterprises requirements.

I do use Orca to tweak the packages I have worked on with WinInstall.

I do work in a corporate environment, I wasnt after the 'best' repackager... just the mostly used one.

Thanks for all your comments.

This does not sound like an "opinion", that is the only reason I responded the way I did.

product I recommend, I just

drljames....ask you boss to buy all the packaging tools as you are looking for marketable skills....I suggest...Wise, Admin Studio, Novadigm Radia (Publisher)

If your main worry is which "repackaging" tool is more common, my experience in Europe and SE Asia has been Wise. Of course that could be different in the US? I'm basing my observations on advertised jobs, my own contracts, and cvs of other packagers that have been sent to me.

To be honest, it's more important that you understand the technology behind the tool (Windows and MSI) than the tool itself - it doesn't take long to adapt to another one. It doesn't matter if a carpenter buys his toolkit from Bosch or Black&Decker if he knows his trade. Although, it's true that many employers fail to understand this point.

When I've been involved in recruiting packagers, I've been more interested in their knowledge of the registry, how applications run on windows, or the MSI tables than which tools they've used in the past.

oofemioo's suggestion wasn't so bad. Most vendors provide evaluation licenses for their software, which means that you can develop a good knowledge of them all for free. You'll then have genuine knowledge of the product that you can advertise on your cv.

I think i have a decent knowledge of registry and how apps run.

I have been using WinINSTALL (and Orca) for quite a while, I downloaded InstallShield demo and was impressed by the added features (compared with WinINSTALL).

I'm currently using a combination of Wise 5.1 and Winstall.

Why?

Because I feel Wise's Setupcapture tool is more work than Wininstall's.

Every setup that I capture using Wise, it requires more work to strip out and remove unnecessary stuff. I can never capture a setup and repackage it working without some work to fix the Wise package before I recompile again and error fix.

I can have a software repackaged with WinInstall cleaner and faster than Wise.

However, Wise, you pay for the MSI editting and customization ability.

So I use WinInstall to capture and Wise to edit the package.. Saves you so much time..

Some apps are simple to package and Wise captures them easily and quickly.

I have noticed that Wise sometimes has difficulty capturing some apps and I generally fall back to do a quick capture with Winstall or SMS as a backup capture. I know this defeats the purpose of using just one tool, but the job is to get the job done and I think that as a professional you have to use all tools available to get it done in the end.

Jim, I fully agree, that has always been my stance, no matter how much money you spend on tools, you must still use the right one for the job, in this case the best tools are sometimes free one. I use Wininstall LE and WIWW (Windows Installer Wrapper Wizard) extensively from day to day. Keep in mind that since May I have packaged over 80 applications.