[WiX-users] Network Install: How To Control What User Sees?

[Andrew Kendall]

Hi All,

I have developed an install package using Wix, featuring a typical set of dialogs, including licence agreement screen, setup type screen (with Typical, Custom and Complete buttons), etc.

Now I am turning my attention to installing it via a network (Windows 2003 Server), and am experimenting with Group Policy Objects. My basic question at this point is: How does the Network Administrator control what gets installed on a client machine, in terms of whether the user should see the dialogs or not? For a network install, how is even something as simple as acceptance of a Licence Agreement handled, when no dialog appears for the user? Despite much Net foraging, I'm stuck, and would be most grateful for some pointers, perhaps to any articles that deal with these issues in depth.

Many thanks for your time and attention.

Regards,
Andrew Kendall

[Bob Arnson]

Post by Andrew Kendall
How does the Network Administrator control what gets installed on a client machine, in terms of whether the user should see the dialogs or not? For a network install, how is even something as simple as acceptance of a Licence Agreement handled, when no dialog appears for the user?

They generally don't: The admin accepts the EULA on the user's behalf,
and supplies properties like ADDLOCAL to install particular (or all)
features of a product.

[Andrew Kendall]

Hi Bob et al,

Sorry, I'm not clear on this at all. I'm struggling with network install concepts in general here, and perhaps I should outline what I am trying to achieve a bit more clearly.

The installation package for our product is currently created using InstallShield, for a traditional, non-MSI install. Using the Wix toolset, I am creating a Windows Installer version in order to facilitate automatic network installs from Windows a domain server, using Group Policy Objects. The Windows Installer version will supercede the InstallShield version for all clients.

So far I have created an install package that a user would manually invoke to install the product on their machine. It goes through a typical set of dialogs, from accepting a licence agreement, then offering an installation choice of Typical, Custom or Complete. For the Custom option, it then offers the user various additional options.

Ok, if an individual user wants to install our product on their computer, no problem. What I don't understand is how to set things up for a network install, whereby an administrator specifies a bunch of install options, which are then propagated to each client install.

Given that no dialogs appear for a client install, how do you control what gets installed? Is there some default value for each button/checkbox that the user is not seeing!?

Under the traditional InstallShield system, the administrator goes through the install process and it records the options that have been chosen in some kind of config file. This file is then invoked by individual users on their own machines to install the product according to the options chosen by the administrator. Does the Windows Installer system have something similar, whereby administrator-defined options can be propagated to all clients at install time?

A important issue here is that we have a network version of our product which, if installed, means that client machines need to know certain central items of data, ie. IP addresses. How can such data be set up by an administrator such that it is available to a client machine when the product is installed.

Regardin Bob's mention of the ADDLOCAL property, how does an adminstrator 'supply properties like ADDLOCAL to install particular (or all) features of a product'?

I'm fumbling around in the dark here on this whole area of network installs, and would be most grateful for some clear guidance. Like I say, it's concepts I need to know about here, rather than technical specifics.

Many, many thanks.

Andrew Kendall





________________________________
From: Bob Arnson <***@joyofsetup.com>
To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. <wix-***@lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Tuesday, 9 December, 2008 22:46:11
Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Network Install: How To Control What User Sees?

Post by Andrew Kendall
How does the Network Administrator control what gets installed on a client machine, in terms of whether the user should see the dialogs or not? For a network install, how is even something as simple as acceptance of a Licence Agreement handled, when no dialog appears for the user?

They generally don't: The admin accepts the EULA on the user's behalf,
and supplies properties like ADDLOCAL to install particular (or all)
features of a product.

[zett42]

Post by Andrew Kendall
Given that no dialogs appear for a client install, how do you control what
gets installed? Is there some default value for each button/checkbox that
the user is not seeing!?

For a per-machine installation via group policies, only the
InstallExecuteSequence is run. By default, it uses the values of properties
specified in the property table and it installs features depending on the
"level" of the feature.
You can simulate this by running "msiexec /qn Package.msi". Note however,
that during group policy installation, the package has no access to any
user-profile data.

If you want a customized group policy installation, you need to assign a
transform file (.mst) to the group policy object. The MST-file is then
applied "on-the-fly" during installation of the package to change/add/remove
some properties. For instance, the transform could supply the ADDLOCAL
property to specify which features to install.
Look in MSDN how transforms are created.

[Rob Mensching]

Note, you can have an "Admin Install UI" that shows up when the admin creates the network image and you can specify "Admin Properties" that are persisted during that process. That can be used, for example, to have the Admin accept the EULA and have the act of accepting the EULA stored in the network image.

There is a lot to Group Policy deployment that is *way* beyond the scope of the WiX toolset. I suggest finding some good documentation/whitepapers on the Group Policy deployment topic and reading for a while. I remember there being a lot to Group Policy deployment back when I worked on Office.

-----Original Message-----
From: zett42 [mailto:***@gmx.de]
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 05:23
To: wix-***@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Network Install: How To Control What User Sees?

Post by Andrew Kendall
Given that no dialogs appear for a client install, how do you control what
gets installed? Is there some default value for each button/checkbox that
the user is not seeing!?

For a per-machine installation via group policies, only the
InstallExecuteSequence is run. By default, it uses the values of properties
specified in the property table and it installs features depending on the
"level" of the feature.
You can simulate this by running "msiexec /qn Package.msi". Note however,
that during group policy installation, the package has no access to any
user-profile data.

If you want a customized group policy installation, you need to assign a
transform file (.mst) to the group policy object. The MST-file is then
applied "on-the-fly" during installation of the package to change/add/remove
some properties. For instance, the transform could supply the ADDLOCAL
property to specify which features to install.
Look in MSDN how transforms are created.
--
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[Bob Arnson]

Post by Andrew Kendall
Ok, if an individual user wants to install our product on their computer, no problem. What I don't understand is how to set things up for a network install, whereby an administrator specifies a bunch of install options, which are then propagated to each client install.

The MSI solution is to use ADDLOCAL to control which features get
installed (including ALL). You can also use the INSTALLLEVEL property to
use the feature level. You can then pass PROPERTY=value pairs to control
things like installation directory and server names.

Post by Andrew Kendall
Regardin Bob's mention of the ADDLOCAL property, how does an adminstrator 'supply properties like ADDLOCAL to install particular (or all) features of a product'?

That's a GPO thing. I can't offer any advice about it.