Skpe App-V

Skpe and App-v....

http://www.tmurgent.com/TmBlog/?tag=skype

Hyper-V remote server management

It’s possible to manage the Hyper-V VMs without remoteing into the Hyper-V server itself.

Download

Windows6.1-KB958830-x64-RefreshPkg.msu or Windows6.1-KB958830-x86-RefreshPkg.msu

from

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7887

Run it to install the Remote Server Admin Tools.

Go to the Programs and Features applet in the control panel and click “Turn Windows Features On or Off”

Activate the Hyper-V tools by selecting the item under Remote Server Administration Tools \ Role Administration Tools

.lnk files in 32/64bit environments

Avoid using .lnk files in packages which could potentially be used in a mixed 32/64-bit environment.  They would be effectively be hardcoded to point to either C:\Program Files.... OR C:\Program Files (x86)....

In case anyone says it is the packager's job to make an application work.....

The packaging consultants role is to create an installation from a set of information that can produce a working installation, as opposed to creating a method to make an application work.  While the packager can bring useful skills to the process, ultimately it is the application owner who is the expert on any given application and responsible for finding a working configuration.  This is then fed back to the packager so that it can be incorporated to the installation package. 

HP ALM Client

The MSI is a “vendor” MSI but is actually generated from a backend system to enable client installations.  The base MSI does not have many entries eg Extensions Table that would normally be expected.  As a result any resources that are installed via an accompanying transform must have the standard table entries added to support the installation of those resources.

In the case of the package above Microsoft Office Addins were requested to be included within the pacakge.  These were captured separately, and the resulting WSI (wise) capture results were used as a guide to author those resources into a transform for the main HP ALM Client MSI.

MS SQL Express 2005 SP3

The page below describes using an ini file to provide input to the Setup.exe which allows it to run silently.  The command line given is

setup.exe /settings <path to ini> /qn

ini file lines:
[Options]
USERNAME="My Company"
COMPANYNAME="My Company"
ADDLOCAL=SQL_Engine,SQL_Data_Files,SQL_Replication
SQLCOLLATION=SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER

Although the ini file did work in the main, it did not generate an installation that exactly matched that which occured during an interactive installation.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms144259(v=sql.90).aspx#upgrade

Specifying the parmeters on the setup.exe command line did produce an installation exactly the same as the interactive one.  SQLCOLLATION was the clients selected setting in this case.  Other option are documented at the link above.

Install:
setup.exe USERNAME="Company Name" COMPANY="Company Name" ADDLOCAL=SQL_Engine,SQL_Data_Files,SQL_Replication SQLCOLLATION=SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER /qn

Uninstall:
setup.exe REMOVE=All INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER /qn

Oracle Hyperion Excel Plugins v11

This post is the result of packaging two installations from Oracle that setup Excel Addins.

Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office, Fusion Edition.msi
Oracle(R) Essbase Spreadsheet Add-in, Fusion Edition.msi

Both of these are supplied inside Installshield installation executeables from which the MSIs can be extracted.

The solutions below involve configuring the installation directory to a location under program files, instead of the default of C:\Oracle.....

Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office, Fusion Edition.msi was relatively straightforward. This MSI could be extracted from %TEMP% in the normal way and installed using standard msiexec command lines.

The essential parts of the transform are below.  It seemed to be uneasy with spaces in the path but then Windows 95 only came out 17 years ago at the time of writing.

Directory Table
ProgramFilesFolder TARGETDIR .:PROGRA~1|progra~1

Property Table
INSTALLDIR C:\Progra~1\Oracle\SmartView\
APPLPATH C:\Progra~1\Oracle\SmartView\

The smartview Excel Addin is a COM type involving the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\Hyperion.CommonAddin

Oracle(R) Essbase Spreadsheet Add-in, Fusion Edition.msi was tricky.  Going down the normal approaches with this item resulted in a broken install.  Essentially, if an attempt is made to silently excute the extracted MSI, the installation reports success but the result is a broken install.  (The connect menu item will not generate a dialog.)

The only way to silently or (basic) install a working installation was to use a command line for the installation executable

Spreadsheet Add-in.exe /S /v"/qb-! TRANSFORMS=TransformName.mst BINARY=en"

This transform for this included
Property Table
ALLUSERS 1
ARBORPATH C:\Progra~1\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11r1\products\ExcelAddin
ESSBASEPATH C:\Progra~1\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11r1\products\ExcelAddin
INSTALLDIR C:\Progra~1\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11r1
The transform design also had vbs script custom actions and an Active Setup key to automatically setup the addins for subsequently logged on users.  These were not strictly necessary however without them users would have to use the provided shortcuts to register and unregister the addins for themselves.

This solution was discovered on this message board.
http://www.appdeploy.com/messageboards/tm.asp?m=83133&mpage=1&key=&#83133

Note also that installing to a 64bit platform would require a transform to have relevent values set to C:\Progra~2 which equates to the C:\Program Files (x86) location on a 64bit machine.