[837] in winnt
Re: Need PC installers built
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (atticus@MIT.EDU)
Fri May 3 16:27:36 2002
From: atticus@MIT.EDU
Message-ID: <1020457654.3cd2f2b662524@webmail.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 16:27:34 -0400
To: Tom Fitzgerald <tfitz@mit.edu>
Cc: ntpartners@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <200205031826.OAA19169@sligo.mit.edu>
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Hi Tom,
I'm the Installer Writer for the Software Release Team. What you want to do is
certainly feasible. I do similar things using Wise for Windows Installer (WfWI)
(www.wise.com) to create .msi files. We also use Wise InstallMaster to
create .exe versions of the same. There are two basic approaches you can take,
depending on the complexity of the existing installers/patches:
1) You can monitor the installation with a tool like WfWI, and perform each
install, patch and modification. This would show you exactly what which files,
registry settings, etc. are being modified. From this information you could
create a one-step installer to install only the desired end-product on the
user's machine. This is more time-consuming, but cleaner.
2) You can create an encapsulating installer that simply runs each of the
other installers in the correct order, including a simple installer to replace
your custom files. This is faster, but requires much more user interaction.
On the other hand, there is less chance for error compared to creating an
installer from scratch as in (1). With large installs containing intricate
logic this may or may not be a more effective solution.
Could you tell me a bit more about what you're specifically working on? I'd be
more than happy to help out however I can.
Atticus
Quoting Tom Fitzgerald <tfitz@MIT.EDU>:
> We need someone or something that will build custom PC software
> installers for us, that will run a 3rd party installer, possibly
> a couple of upgrade or patch installers on top of that, and
> then replace one or more files in the resulting installation tree
> with our own custom versions.
>
> Does anyone know of a software toolkit that will do this kind of
> thing - or is this something that it would be easier for a contractor
> to do (and if so, anyone have any recommendations)?
