Software Deployment

Keep in mind that windows installer properties are case sensitive

Thanks, I did type them in in upper case. I just didn't put them that way in my post. -Shane

I extract the MSI and apply an MST to it. All of those should be in the property table. It's worked well for the past several versions....before that you had to muck around with the registry and (heh heh) if you get clever just delete the update executables.

Shane,

the best way to enforce these settings is to add a system-level deployment.config and deployment.properties file to your package through an MST.
Have a look at this link for an overview of these files, where to put them and what to put in them.

Kr,
PJ

Thanks! I took a look in deployment.properties which I found only in c:\users\me\AppData\LocalLow\Sun\Java\Deployment. It looks a little different then what is documented on the site. Below are the contents. Do you know what I would need to add or change to turn off the autoupdates?

Also, I'm confused about setting deployment.properties to system-wide versus user-wide. I was thinking system was for all users on one computer and user is for just one user. But the site describes it as "enterprise-wide" and says you should put it in a URL. So I'm thinking they mean that system is for all computers in the environment and you can configure them with a single file. Is that right?

#deployment.properties
#Wed Feb 01 14:54:29 CST 2012
deployment.javaws.cache.update=true
deployment.version=6.0
deployment.capture.mime.types=true
deployment.javapi.cache.update=true
deployment.browser.path=C\:\\Program Files (x86)\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe
#Java Deployment jre's
#Wed Feb 01 14:54:29 CST 2012
deployment.javaws.jre.0.product=1.6.0_30
deployment.javaws.jre.0.registered=true
deployment.javaws.jre.0.osname=Windows
deployment.javaws.jre.0.platform=1.6
deployment.javaws.jre.0.path=C\:\\Program Files (x86)\\Java\\jre6\\bin\\javaw.exe
deployment.javaws.jre.0.location=http\://java.sun.com/products/autodl/j2se
deployment.javaws.jre.0.enabled=true
deployment.javaws.jre.0.osarch=x86

-Shane

I took a quick copy of the relevant entries in a deployment.properties file from a package that I have lying around here:

#deployment.properties
...
deployment.javaws.autodownload=NEVER
deployment.javaws.autodownload.locked=

deployment.config only has the line

deployment.system.config=file\:C\:/WINDOWS/Sun/Java/Deployment/deployment.properties

both the deployment.config and deployment.properties file reside under C:\Windows\Sun\Java\Deployment for a system-wide scope (as in for all users on the machine). These should override any versions in the users' profiles.
I guess you could point to a central network location in deployment.config to enable an Enterprise Wide lockdown, but I have no personal experience implementing that. Unless by 'putting it in as a URL' they mean the somewhat special notation of the path in deployment.config with the file\:C\...

PJ

That's great. Thanks, PJ. I've never done this before. Can you help me connect the dots on the solution. I edit the deployment.properties. I have the MSI open in Orca. How do I reference deployment.config and deployment.properties in the MST? Do I need to change any settings in the Properties table of the MSI or do I just let deployment.config and deployment.properties do the work?
Thanks,

-Shane

you'll need to add those files to the MST, but only using Orca it's not gonna be the easiest thing in the world, especially if you're not very experienced with it yet.
Or you could copy them to the target machines with some other mechansm.

PJ